


Those of the Light

by AkeboshiShiba



Series: The Lucky Seven [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Game), Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkeboshiShiba/pseuds/AkeboshiShiba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future where darkness is looming over the solar system, seven saviors are chosen from a time where humans had unbelievable powers that the guardians don't quite understand. They were all just tales told to children so the children would believe that one day they could once again call Earth home. The thought of them just being stories told to children was demolished when the first of them appeared, The forgotten one is what they called her. She was first of The legendary few, the lucky seven that the speaker spoke of... and she was definitely not going to be the last even if she had to find them herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Forgotten One

**Author's Note:**

> Ok. I do not own destiny, or the anime it’s crossed with.  
> First destiny story, and it’s a crossover. This is for my older brother, Steven(Loki), and my friend, Alvin(Lion), who told me that destiny is life and that I should do a destiny crossover story. Their names on destiny are Loki and Lion and there is a reasoning that i named them, but im not going to make a big deal of it, just a little humor in the plot. Well… here you go!

_There are tales of humans from long ago, humans with unimaginable power and the ability to wield it at the very tips of their fingers._

__  
Some say that they're just stories made up to give hope to children that one day humanity can overcome the fallen, the vex, the hive, and the cabal; and once again live on earth as the guardians live in the tower.  
No one knows the exact origin of these tales, but these souls are the ones the ghosts have been dispatched to find. 

_There is, however, a lingering doubt that the ghosts will ever find humans of such strength.  
Yet, despite these doubts... some still believe in the tales with all their heart._

_Some say the speaker himself believes the tales to be true, saying the traveler has predicted the coming of a group of new guardians with unimaginable strength._

__  
Others pass them off as hopeless stories for children…  
Perhaps the tales hold some truth after all... because as time goes on, strange guardians are appearing one by one. 

_With unique talents and abilities it’s possible that these guardians are the legendary few, but those aren’t the ones this story begins with…_  
The one we begin with is the one who was seemingly forgotten, the first of their kind.

__  
We now start with the forgotten soul, one lost so deep within the depth of the Earth’s crust that they were thought to have been abandoned.  
One guardian had been lost on earth, him having been in search of a special material called helium filaments, a material that is used to add to the durability of armor and to better weapons as well.

__  
They weren’t hard to find if you knew where to look, but the blades of Crota were as merciless as ever and had ambushed him in a group.  
Perhaps it had been fate that yet another guardian had been awoken that very time he had taken his patrol trip to earth.

_Perhaps it had been the traveler’s will that she had appeared that very day. The woman who changed everything…_  
:-:-:  
Chapter one, the forgotten one.

  
The Ghost hovered about scanning one thing after another, it was searching for something in this dark pit, the ghost could feel the energy radiating from the pit. A wave of energy rushed over the land, signaling a familiar fate. “Another has Fallen…” the ghost said as it scanned across the area of ornate rock in front of it. “Interesting… this is something new… is this the insignia that the traveler was telling me to search for?” the ghost asked no one in particular. It scanned over the carved insignia on the stone and sighed.

“Not it… this is a different one… I believe the one the traveler told me to search for was… a swirling leaf…” the ghost said as it hovered around the rock analyzing the area. “This is a flame. Hm…” the ghost muttered as it levitated the rock to reveal yet another passageway down in the pit. The ghost proceeded down the path, feeling the energy of the soul getting stronger and stronger the closer it got to it. The ghost came to a figure of a woman shrouded in a blue fog, the woman herself was see through, signaling to the ghost that she was one of the few, a destined guardian.

The ghost proceeded to perform the resurrection process. Starting from the feet a skeleton began to form from seemingly nothing swiftly nerves, blood vessels, and skin began to wrap around the foot bones and continued up the glowing skeleton to form organs and allow the veins, vessels, muscles, and skin to wrap around the organs and form a feminine form. Soft pink lips frowned in confusion as boots, clothes, and armor covered her body from head to toe afterwards. White eyes locked onto the ghost before a shade of black glass fell over her eyes and a helmet materialized over the rest of her head, encasing her long ebony blue locks in her armor as well. Her form collapsed against the floor, the inability to hold herself steady apparent.

She seemed to be struggling to get back to her feet as she wobbled on her hands and knees as if under the influence of alchohol. “Guardian…” the ghost called and her obviously unfocused gaze was searching for the source of the sound. “Eyes up, guardian.” He called once more and her shaky gaze seemed to find itself on him. She seemed to be getting better control of her body now, as she carefully shoved herself to her feet and began moving her limbs as if to get used to the feeling of living once more. “Welcome back guardian. Now what I'm about to tell you might come as quite a shock, and so will everything you see outside. You’ve been dead for a very long time, you see… so please do not panic if you don’t understand.” The ghost began and she turned her head up to look at the hovering creature.

“I know… I know I've been dead for a long time… this doesn’t smell of home… this smells putrid… like death, decay, and burned things…” she said, her voice soft and gentle. The ghost wouldn’t have heard her if he had been a human… that was for sure. “That may be… but for now we need to get you a weapon… seems like you're a warlock, judging by the armor you were resuscitated in. So follow me, alright?” the ghost asked and she didn’t move when the ghost asked her to follow. “A weapon? What sort of weapon would I need?” she asked softly and the ghost turned to face her.

“A gun… we need to find you a gun. I didn’t bring you back just for you to die on me again…” the ghost said and she began fiddling with her fingers. “Um… if it’s not rude to ask… what exactly are you?” she asked and the ghost hovered for a moment before beginning to explain. “I'm a ghost, more importantly, I'm now your ghost. I will help you get out of tricky situations seeing as you're not as technologically advanced as a lot of the other guardians. There are many of us ghosts out there, so you don’t have to worry about me having to assist the other guardians.” The ghost said and she nodded.

“Alright, so what do I call you? Do you have a name or something?” she asked softly and the ghost was caught off guard. “We uh… we don’t have names… we just… were just ghosts. That’s all.” The ghost said and she frowned beneath her helmet… “Well that’s no good… I'm going to name you… Ko… After an old friend of mine.” She said and the ghost spun to turn to her. “You remember your past?” he asked and she nodded. “I remember it well… was I not supposed to?” she asked and the ghost made a movement as to shake its head no if it had one. “No… most guardians remember the landscape… but if you remember your past you're just like them… we have to get you to the tower. But first… no fallen brother left behind.” The ghost said and she tilted her head.

“When we reach the opening to this pit, we are going to go west, there is a fallen guardian. We need to get you a weapon first because you don’t know if the Fallen are still surrounding him.” The ghost said and she began moving her limbs trying to see if they still held her muscle memory, which they luckily did. “I'm not sure how much help I will be overall… but a fallen guardian is one of my own right? A comrade?” she asked nervously and the ghost made a nod type movement. “Alright… then just as I used to… I have to go help my friends.” She said softly, her voice still insecure. The ghost watched her for a moment then sighed.

“Follow me. There should be a gun this way, I can feel its inanimate energy.” The ghost said and she followed the ghost up the path obediently. The ghost led her safely up the path leaving the pit and out in the open. Her eyes widened in shock as her world spun around her. The images blurred and all she saw was orange, light brown, and red… the colors of the desert wasteland surrounding her, the broken down metal objects with what looked like rubber coated wagon wheels, the old brownish rusted buildings blurring in her vision as well as the wasteland landscape. A choked sob escaped her lips and when her hand shot up to attempt to cover her mouth in shock, her gauntlets collided with her helmet.

“What happened to my home… where are all the trees? The oceans? The villages? What is this place?” she sobbed and her ghost hovered over to her. “This is earth… I suppose what is left of your… village, as you said… is buried deep underground where I found your burial… I'm sorry…” the ghost said and she turned towards the ghost. “What caused this to happen.” She asked softly, sniffling as she tried to get her emotions under control. “Creatures called the Fallen. They came here to destroy earth and steal resources… At least that’s what we have recorded in the history of our computers…” the ghost said and she looked at him. “Computers are devices with un-measureable intelligence and vast computing properties. Don’t worry you’ll learn everything you need to know about in due time.” The ghost said and she nodded.

“Thank you Ko.” She said and the ghost looked at her. “You're welcome guardian.” The ghost said and hovered ahead of her towards an abandoned shed with a metal crate within. Propped up on the side of the crate was an auto rifle, and sitting atop the metal crate was what the ghost described as a hand cannon. “You should take both and the ammo for them, seems someone is being careless.” The ghost said and she nodded. She grabbed the auto rifle by the strap and tossed it over her shoulders. She strapped the holster for the hand cannon to her thigh and put the gun within it.

“Alright, lets go, the hunter should be over this direction.” The ghost said and she looked at him. “Hunter?” she asked and the ghost made a noise then began to explain. “Hunters are a special type of guardians, they usually go out to gather things from the surface of the planets. Hunters are pretty much free to go wherever they please because once they have proved themselves strong enough to activate their inbred ability to materialize out of sight, they can move around virtually undetected.” The ghost explained and she was awestruck.

“We should h-hurry then!” she said and took off running quickly towards the direction the ghost said the downed Hunter was. She skidded to a stop when she heard incoherent speaking. A chill went down her spine as she froze in her tracks as those incoherent voices faded out and the sound of a heavy blade sliding across the metal floor and heavy breathing sounded right behind her. Her fingers trembled as she slowly turned to look behind her at the creature towering over her. “A blade of Crota… run guardian… we can't save the Hunter. We need to find us a ship, that’s more important right now.” She looked over and saw the downed guardian, his hood and helmet were crumbling away, his skin becoming exposed. She narrowed her eyes as she caught sight of a face that brought back so many memories, she couldn’t be certain if it were actually him or not… but she couldn’t allow him to die.” She spun on her heel and rushed at the blade.

Her ghost continued to yell at her, telling her it was suicide and that he couldn’t revive her on his own. She jumped and spun, her booted leg connecting with the blade’s arm. She tried to jump back but the blade grabbed her by the leg and slung her against the ground. She released a pained yell upon impact, but she refused to stay down. “I refuse to give in… he wouldn’t… so why should I?” she muttered more to herself than to her ghost. Her flat palms began to radiate blue energy and they soon formed twin lion heads that spread over the outside of her gauntlets, surprising the ghost. “I refuse to fall without a fight.” She ground out, a bit more determination this time. She was fast, especially for a human… the ghosts had never seen humans move at such speed before.

“You're one of the legendary ones…” her ghost said as he watched her lion fists make crack after crack in the blade’s hardened exterior. She finished the blade off by grabbing a hold of the large sword the blade had continuously tried to end her with, and she ran it through with its own blade. The creature fell to the ground and she crouched next to the fallen guardian. She held her hands out to his deconstructed ghost and green energy flowed from her being and into the guardian’s. Dark eyes snapped open and a deep breath was heard right before the helmet snapped back over the man’s eyes. She stood and offered her fellow guardian a hand. “Damn it all…” the hunter muttered as he studied his destroyed auto rifle.

“Here… this might do the job for a while… at least until we can get out of here….” She said and he looked at her. He nodded and took the auto rifle she was extending towards him. “You're a new guardian, huh? Well I guess it can't be helped.” He sighed and reached up to rub the hood covering his head. “Come on, let’s get you in my ship, then we can head back to the tower and get you one of your own, how about that?” the hunter asked and she nodded exuberantly. He chuckled and hit a button on his gauntlet and his ship zoomed overhead and it scanned him, his ghost, her, and her ghost before it teleported them into the ship. “You seem to have this whole technology thing figured out…” she said softly and he chuckled good naturedly.

“It was a bit bothersome, but I figured it out after a while.” He chuckled and turned to her, she appeared to be frozen, staring at him. “Uh… was it something I said?” he asked scratching his hood once more. “Uh… no sorry. You just remind me of someone I knew when I was alive so long ago…” she said softly, her shyness seeping into her voice slightly. “Ah, I see. Well, that’s no big deal. I'm sure someday you’ll find someone you know. My brother is the assistant to the speaker, it was only by chance that he was brought back though.” He chuckled. “But… if there are other rank one guardians as strong as you out there… I'm absolutely sure that the ghosts will find them.” The hunter said and she nodded. “So, what is your name? I'm Eren.” He said and she extended her hand to shake his outstretched one.

“Hinata, Hinata Hyuuga. I'm from edo, I lived in a village called konoha.” She said and he stared at her wide eyed. She blushed lightly, nervous because of the look she was receiving. “Edo? You mean early japan? Wow… how did you end up buried under Russia!?” he asked and she blinked. “Russia?” she asked and he nodded. “Yeah… Japan is so far from here it’s not even funny.” He said and she frowned. “So I was left there…” she began sadly and he watched her. “What do you mean?” he asked and she sat down in the passenger seat of the ship. “When I died, I had been sent on an assignment… it should have been a simple one, but the cave collapsed. I guess they never found me…” she said softly, her voice deeply saddened by this.

“Well… at least you can remember how you died, I was found as a pile of bones in a toilet… talk about a shitty death.” He said and she laughed, a grin crossed his lips as she did so. “See! Not everything has to be all down in the dumps, come on, once we land I will introduce you to the warlock vanguard leader and she will get you some better armor.” He said and she nodded. “Oh… um… Eren…” she called and he turned around to face her once more. “What is this… glimmer my gauntlet keeps flashing at me?” she asked and he walked over to her and flipped open the touch screen cover on her gauntlet. He began tapping on random icons and explaining what they do. “This one, the one that looks like a storage box, it turns your weapons into recognizable engrams so that you can store them and equip them just as easy. See watch.” He said and tapped on the storage box on his gauntlet.

He had been holding the auto rifle that she had given him, but it turned into a white multi surfaced flat-faced shape and vanished into his gauntlet, a purple object of the same shape flew from the surface of his gauntlet and formed a Hand Cannon in his grasp. “See, isn’t that neat?” he asked and she nodded. “Alright, so this one…” he began and pointed at one that looked like a list. “This is your current bounty list. Obviously yours is empty so far because you haven’t even been to the tower yet.” He said and she nodded. He pointed to the icon that looked like a coin and smiled. “This one is going to be one of your best friends. This is the one that shows how many Motes of Light you have and also how many Strange coins you have.” He said and she nodded, not quite understanding what those items were.

“Those are special currency that the speaker and Xur will trade you items for.” He explained and she nodded. “Alright, now that we have the basics covered, glimmer. Glimmer is gained by killing the enemy. Every time you kill something, your ghost takes it’s death into account and amounts its worth in glimmer. The more glimmer you have, the more you can buy. It’s pretty simple, you kill the bad guy and get paid for doing so.” He said and she nodded. A small smile crossed her lips. “My husband would have loved the idea of this… his ramen binge would never be satiated.” She laughed and Eren raised a brow at her.

“You were married?” he asked, seemingly astonished. She nodded and he blinked. “Wow… just wow… you don’t even look twenty three.” He said and she furrowed her brows. “I guess when they bring you back they bring you back at your peak of strength.” He offered and she shrugged lightly. “I guess so…” she said and her eyes caught sight of a large structure they were pulling closer to. “Is this the tower?” she asked softly and he nodded. “Yup… this is home…” he said and her eyes were shining in amazement. His ship landed and they were teleported out of it. She landed ceremoniously on the tips of her toes, while Eren on the other hand landed in a noisy crouch. “How do you land so softly? I drop like an elephant on ice.” He laughed and she blushed.

“Um… I'm not sure… I think its muscle memory…” she said and he nodded. “Well… follow me. There’s a gunsmith over here. Let’s get you a better weapon first.” He said and he led her over to the gunsmith. “Ah… A newcomer to the tower. I haven’t seen you before.” Banshee said and she nodded shyly. “Hello.” She said and Banshee chuckled out an electronic laugh. “I’d take it you’ve never seen an Exo before.” He said and she shook her head. “That’s fine. Since you're a newcomer to the tower I am obligated to give you your choice of a weapon, on the house.” He said and she blinked.

“Really?” she asked and Banshee nodded. Her eyes scanned over the weapons he’d laid out for her and the one that caught her eye was a small shining silver gun with a long barrel. “Ah… the hand cannon.” He said and she picked it up. “Very good choice, you take care of that weapon guardian.” He said and she nodded. “I will sir…” she said and he nodded at her. She turned to Eren and frowned as she held the slightly heavy weapon within her grasp. “I want to go back to earth… I want to bring a few ghosts with me. if I can find my friends, they will no doubt be willing to assist in helping.” Hinata said and he frowned.

“I'm sorry… I don’t think that’s how it works Hinata… the ghost has to choose you…” Eren said and Ko hovered around her. “I'm afraid he’s right Hinata. We have a set DNA that we are supposed to find, I was told to find yours. Some ghosts never actually find their guardian, sadly enough…” her ghost said and she smiled at him slightly. “Thank you for finding me, Ko. I'm very grateful to you.” She said and her ghost said nothing, he just hovered around her once more. “You're very welcome… guardian…” he said and she smiled at him. “I can do one thing for you Hinata… I can gift you armor from a higher rank…. It should fit you.” Eren said and Hinata looked at him in shock. “Guardian, if you can wear the armor he gives you already, we must go speak to the speaker... he is the voice of our traveler, the one who chose you to come back…” Ko Said and she nodded. They made their way over to the Speaker and Hinata began to get nervous. They entered the dome like room and Hinata was engrossed in the large spinning gyro sphere. She walked over and reached to try to touch it, but someone cleared their throat.

“You must be the newest guardian, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said as he made his way down the stairs towards her. “But my, aren’t you dressed oddly.” He said, mildly surprised at seeing her wearing higher ranking armor than she already should. “That is why I'm here, sir, I was told that if I could wear the higher ranking armor already… then I was um… special…” Hinata said as she fumbled with her fingers. Her dark navy locks fell in nearly a solid curtain around the shoulders of her armor. The Speaker circled her and she watched him without even turning her head, it seemed she still retained the majority of her abilities from her past life. “What a fierce gaze as well, that is something I haven’t seen before.” He said and she only blinked. She didn’t think much of this man, she wasn’t sure if she should fully trust him; but the fact that everyone else here trusted him she supposed she should as well. What set her on edge was the fact he remained a obscured face in this place where it seemed that no one covered their faces.

“You're skeptical. I understand this fully. You have no idea where you are, what this place is, what is actually going on, and why you were brought back.” He said and she watched him carefully. “You see… there is a darkness coming, trying to extinguish our light. They are trying to destroy everything we know. As you can tell from what you must have already seen, they are succeeding in their efforts of making us obsolete. Whatever the cost, we cannot allow them to extinguish our light. We cannot allow them to break us down and take everything away from us.” The speaker said and she watched him in the same silence she had been keeping. “Come a bit closer.” He said and she stepped forwards ever so slightly.

“I want to see what the Traveler will allow me to see of your purpose.” He said and she closed her eyes as his gloved hands gently pressed against the sides of her head. “What mystifying things I get from you…” he managed as a purple chakra engulfed her and his hands, slowly crawling down his arms as well. He was struggling to keep his grasp on her as said chakra seeped across him.

“What is that?” Eren asked as he and his younger brother, Kris, took a few tentative steps backwards. “This void ability is one that I have never felt, it is frighteningly ominous.” Kris said and made his way back up the stairs just to get as far from the feeling as possible without getting out of visual range. Eren watched his younger brother tremble at the top of the stairs and he knew that this young woman he had brought in was in fact very special. Hinata’s eyes had snapped open, tears falling from her white orbs, her mouth open in a silent scream of either fear or agony; they couldn’t tell. “You must forgive me… I have never seen anything like this.” The speaker said, still not removing his hands from her.

“What terrifying eyes of crimson I see…” he whispered his body going slightly rigid at the mental image of said eyes. “So angry and vengeful… neither the same pattern, one obscured.” he said as ebony locks crossed over one those eyes in his mind. “A name isn’t uttered, just an image… I suppose this person will be an ally. One to keep an eye on, but an ally nonetheless.” He said, but when he made a move to remove his hands a shock of pink flashed in his mind’s eye. “Such a calming color… but what a rage behind those Evergreen eyes…” he said and the glint of a jewel flashed in his vision.

“A woman with pink hair, eyes the color of the leaves, and a rage unlike any other.” He said and Eren watched the purple aura flare and sprout foxlike ears atop her head. “What a magnificent sight indeed!” The Speaker managed as one by one the chakra surrounding her sprouted tail after tail. “This power is not yours.” He said, the excitement in his voice audible for all those around to hear. Her arms began to tremble violently and slowly she attempted to clutch herself. “What beautiful sights I see from you, young one. Do you have any more to show me as of this moment?” he asked and she reached up with trembling hands and grasped his helmet.

The moment she made contact, his hands fell limp. “What beautiful power…” he whispered. “These legendary few…” he added and the chakra began to fade. Blue eyes and blonde hair flooded his vision, then light green eyes and red hair, then dark hair and brown eyes, and lastly pale blonde hair and baby blue eyes. “The power is terrifying to me, so their power should no doubt fight off the darkness.” The speaker said and the ominously colored chakra began to fade and Hinata hit her knees. She was hyperventilating, but that was understandable to the Speaker.

An ebony ghost hovered by Hinata and they all watched the new ghost. “You…” the ghost began as it hovered around her. “You can lead me to him…” it said and Eren blinked. “Lead you to who?” he asked and the ghost turned to him, then back to her as she stood. “I… can find Sasuke…” she said and the ghost vanished into the screen on her gauntlet. “Who is Sasuke?” The speaker asked and Hinata shakily stood. “He was my husband’s best friend. He is far stronger than I could ever be…” she said and Eren furrowed his brows at her.

“Now that is nonsense. I have never seen a human as strong as you…” he said and she pulled her curtain of hair over her shoulder and began to braid it into a loose braid. “You will see…” she said softly with downcast eyes. “I suppose that once again… I'm only here to find the ones who are stronger than I am…” she whispered and turned to leave but the speaker placed a hand on her shoulder. “Take this.” He said and handed her a warlock bond. She gently grasped it and it began to glow brightly at her touch. Eren’s eyes were wide, as were Kris’.

“Speaker, sir… I have never seen a bond like that.” Kris stammered and The Speaker nodded. “Nor have I, it is the bond formed by her touch. I handed her a blank slate, and she became the leader of ghosts.” He said and eyed the strange bond. The image of feathered wings protectively circled an image of a Ghost. She proceeded to leave and make her way to the ship docking area to get her a ship. The image was a bright shade of blue, noticeable by all who passed. She heard their whispers, their murmurs of intrigue, but it did not phase her one bit. What did, however, sent her mind into turmoil.

She knew that if she were to find him first, it was going to be trouble. She knew this, and yet despite her heart ache she knew she needed to find him. Her eyes slid shut as she felt the disgust fill her form. She didn’t hate the man; no… it was actually far from it. She had been quite good friends with him actually, and that had been part of the problem. Technically it was selfish of her to want to find Naruto first, but if Sasuke was going to be the first one she could find she wasn’t going to complain. “Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, Gaara, I'm coming for you… I will find you and we will fix this. And then maybe we can all rest in peace.” She whispered to the sky.

:-:-:-:-:

His hands went through everything he tried to touch, damn wasn’t this troubling. An annoyed twitch found his eye, but he still wandered aimlessly around this tomb he was trapped in. He could feel her soul, even from so far away. Her soul called out to his and he wondered if she would ever find him, and he wondered what would happen if she did manage to find him. When he sat and cleared his mind, he could feel other souls trapped as well; but only her soul called out to him the way it did. He supposed there was a reasoning for this, being as they had been very good friends. Sakura’s soul was off in the distance and he could feel her soul tugging at his blonde best friend’s soul, he wondered if this divine interaction was taunting him. Trying to tell him exactly what his older brother had when they had been at peace, resting in the confines of heaven surrounded by his family.

He released a sigh that held no noise, or even the usual rush of air that should follow. He looked back at his marred pile of bones and his eyes drooped in his sadness. He had left Sakura a widow, and Sarada without a father. He hadn’t meant to, but when he had fallen ill; it had taken him swiftly. Hinata had perished and no one had been able to find her, and he blamed himself all this time. It had actually seemed to be something of his fault, he had lost his grip. She had fallen so far into that cavern before it had caved, and no matter how much digging he had done, he never found her. He had created her a grave stone, he had felt that it was only right that he had done so.

He could still see her eyes… those scared moon colored eyes of hers… He could still hear her scream of fear as she had slipped from his grasp. He hadn’t meant to let her slip from his grasp, but she just… had… This being why the guilt, self hatred, and rage had followed him to his deathbed and even beyond... He thought Naruto, Bolt, and Himawari would have hated him… but they hadn’t. Naruto still came over to visit him while he lay there, slowly fading from the realm of the living. Bolt and Sarada had come to see him on a daily basis, the young Uzumaki had even asked him for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He had given consent, because the guilt was overwhelming to him and he wanted to make sure Bolt knew he was sorry.

He supposed Bolt had realized this, being as to why the young blonde had come to him and had told him that he knew what it meant to be a shinobi. He knew that you could die on a daily basis, this was how it was. Bolt had told him that he didn’t want Sasuke to think he had owed him anything, because he hadn’t. Accidents happen, they knew their mother loved them dearly; and they would never forget it. This had tugged on the Uchiha’s hidden heart strings, Naruto’s son could read him like a book it had seemed. Himawari had a different approach to this though… she had come to sing to him more often than not.

She had sung him to sleep as he had passed from the realm of the living, to be exact.

The song had been a beautiful one, which he knew held so much meaning to her. Hell, anyone he knew could hold meaning to the song. They had all been through so much and just the title of her song had caught his eye. She had looked and sounded so much like her mother, that he had cried as he had passed away. Regret eating away at him even as he had faded from the world. She would sing A Promise That Doesn’t Need words, and no matter how many times he would hear her sing it… it still made him both smile ever so slightly, and make his chest tighten in his regret. He had always enjoyed watching her dance around as she would sing, even if he couldn’t move far from the back porch of his home. She would come to him and try and brighten his day, although Naruto would follow soon after and make some sort of joke about no matter how many sunflowers surrounded him, they could never break the veil of darkness around him.

Himawari would laugh, knowing her father was referencing her name, and she would tell him that her mother could have… and then she would say she was just trying to be like her mother, and brighten the lives of all those around her. This would make Naruto grin and hug his daughter tightly, but would make all that guilt come rushing back to him. Sasuke had torn their family apart and yet they had still come by and tried to make him feel better. The only way he could ever repay them… was if Hinata had found him once more. He had seen it happen in his mind’s eye, a small mechanical creature had brought Hinata back from the realm of the dead.

He knew his time to return was coming, because he could feel her soul edging ever so close.

Once she found him… he was not going to let anything happen to her.

Not again, not ever again. Even if he perished once more, he would protect her.

 


	2. Chapter 2

She wasn't sure where she was going to go today, her ghost had been telling her of a forbidden zone on earth that few have made it through alive, being as why they called it the forbidden zone. "I'm not sure you should go, Hinata." Her ghost, Ko, said as he hovered around her. "Where exactly is it?" she asked as she tapped through the selection screen on her vault. She now adorned armor that once she turned it into an engram it was purple. None of the others had quite understood why she rose through the ranks so swiftly when it had taken some of them years to get to her ranking.

However she supposed that it couldn't be helped that she was going to gain the attention of others. She also figured she was gaining attention because of her odd appearance, and not just the fact that she excelled swiftly. "You look like an Awoken but you aren't one, you have two ghosts, and are a rank thirty one for only having been here three weeks. Of course they will find you strange and intriguing." Ko stated simply as he hovered around her. She looked at her hands and knew he was right.

She had discovered her inbred warlock abilities and they made her wonder if this was a side effect of her being resurrected by the traveler's light, or if this was the special power that Toneri had told her about because of her title of princess Byakugan. She could send out a shockwave of energy that drained the life force and energy of those it was used on, and after a certain period of time she could drop what was called a nova bomb, which disintegrated her foes that it touched.

She sighed as she picked her favorite blue hand cannon, The Ill Will, which was a purple engram weapon. She looked it over, checked the magazine, and her spares, before strapping it back to her lower back. The second ghost hovered around her, watching every move she made. Hinata was slightly unnerved by the fact this dark ghost was so observant to every move she made. Her ghost was watching the other ghost as well, she supposed he was unnerved by this new ghosts presence as well. "You hold his life force, and the life force of others… it makes no sense. How is this possible?" the ghost asked suddenly and Ko turned to face Hinata.

"I'm not sure, but I know I'm supposed to find them, no matter what." She said and the darker colored ghost watched her for a moment then turned itself into an engram and stored itself away in her gauntlets. Hinata sighed as she gathered her things, she couldn't tell if the other ghost approved of her or if it couldn't stand her. She supposed that she shouldn't worry over it because it would be fine either way.

She did however have an odd feeling deep in her gut about this trip. She was going to be past the European darkness zone, which was completely in the opposite direction of which she wanted to go. She was going to be headed into the forbidden zone just in between Russia and what they now call Widow's Court in the European zone. She could faintly remember that there was a small village of medics in that general area, Sakura, Tsunade, and Shizune had gone there more often than not. There they had a wide variety of poisons, antidotes, herbal remedies, and rare herbs. Hinata had gone with them to that area a few times. She couldn't quite understand the draw that was leading her there now, it was a tugging feeling at her soul and she couldn't help but wonder if she should actually follow it or not.

Either way, she was going to follow it and see exactly what it was… even if she didn't quite like the outcome.

:-:

She dropped from her ship, which although wasn't a very flashy ship like the others she had seen, was still a nice ship. It was called the Eon Trespass and she had opened a chest on mars, which had given her the blueprints for the shipwright. She peered around at what remained of the old abandoned hospitals, businesses, and apartment buildings. This was not such a new sight to her, all this destruction and desolated chaos… It sent her mind into a nostalgic frenzy of panic, her having remembered exactly what it had been like after Pein had destroyed her home village.

Before she could get too in-depth with her memories of that fearsome time, a pulse of energy escaped her form and she looked around with confused eyes. It felt as if something was watching her, gauging her abilities just by glance. The familiar pulse of energy emanated from her eyes and she glanced around her. She could see their heart beats, the largest one was a calm simple rhythm while the group of medium and smaller ones hearts were racing. She couldn't tell if they were anxious, excited, or even angry, but she knew they were a threat to her safety.

These were the fallen after all; they were friendly to no guardian. "Hinata, what is it? What are you looking at?" Ko asked and she turned her gaze to him, albeit he is a small robotic creature, if he had a spine, those eyes would send chills down it. "A Fallen Captain, Three Elder Vandals, and about seven Dregs, I can get rid of the majority of them from here." she said as she decrypted her Ice Breaker Sniper Rifle. "I hope you are a good shot, You weren't the last time we needed the rifle…" Ko sighed and Hinata sighed. "I was practicing without using my Byakugan… I can hit them from here if I use it." She said and Ko gave no further reply.

She crouched and aimed with steady movements. She sat and watched them through the scope for a moment before she fired once, causing two Dregs to fall. She released her breath, pulled back the bolt to eject the used round, and ever so slightly moved the rifle to take aim once more. She fired three more shots and watched as the Vandals fell. That was when she moved the scope enough to see that the Captain had flickered from sight. "They found us out. I guess we should go now." she sighed as she watched her rifle vanish from sight, only for it to appear in her inventory on her gauntlets.

She could feel the eyes of the Captain boring into her back even from here. The gaze was curious, much unlike the enraged, hate filled gaze she had received when she had killed the Archon Priest on her first time back to earth. She looked up and off in the far distance at the edge of her Byakugan's sight she could see the cathedrals of Widow's Court. She was right where she needed to be, and she knew it.

There was a resonating energy deep underground beneath her feet, she was curious and wanted to know what it was but she was also cautious and didn't think going down there alone would help much. She grabbed the hand cannon on her hip and started into the old building before her. It was dark and she could hear the Fallen chattering amongst the darkness below. She couldn't understand what they were saying but she didn't think they could figure out what she was, if they had noticed her at all.

She glanced around at the darkened hallway before Ko appeared before her and shined a light. "Thank you." she said and he made a head shaking movement. "It's my job I'm here to help you." he said and she shook her head. "Everyone deserves a thank you for their assistance. I highly doubt I could do half of my assignments without your help, so I thank you." She said as she peered around a corner, her gun aimed down the hallway.

She was cautious, and she had every right to be. She didn't understand at all why she had been brought back, she just couldn't figure it out. They should have returned Naruto first he would have stopped at nothing to find, Sakura, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Gaara, and Ino. She also believed he could have accomplished this much faster than she could. She pulled herself out of those thoughts because of a loud thumping noise near her.

Gutteral voices signaled Fallen chatter nearby. She slipped into a small crevice and watched as the large creature stomped by. This Fallen was larger than any she had seen, and held a distinct feeling of authority over the others as well. Ko looked like he wanted to say something to her, but he kept silent as to not warrant the creatures attentions. As soon as the heavy footsteps began to fade, Hinata slipped from her hiding place and made her way in the direction the large Fallen went. "Hinata, That's a Kell. I highly doubt we are ready to face one just yet, even with all of the legendary and exotic weapons you have it may not be such a good idea." he said and she nodded.

"I know, I'm not going to fight it, I'm going to follow it to see where it is going." she said as she slipped through the same door The Kell just had. She saw the large creature stalking down the large hallway and made an effort to follow without being noticed. She took in the appearance of the creature from a distance. This one, albeit insanely tall, had a sleek, slender body shape. She deduced that this one might actually be female, which is why it was so odd in appearance to her. She looked closer and nodded to herself, Not that this one being a female would change anything; she had still decided that this Kell was female.

They watched as the Kell entered a large room, where a bright blue glow was emanating. "A Potential guardian…" Ko said and vanished, as did the other ghost. Her eyes went wide when she realized they had both abandoned her for this potential guardian. She swiftly made her way into the large room, which turned out to be something of a throne room in the old downstairs area of the building she was in. The feminine Kell rose from her seat and all four of her arms held weapons resembling her hand cannon. Hinata's eyes went wide as she realized that she had made a mistake coming to this place.

She heard the chatter behind her and realized that she had somehow called in reinforcements. Hinata focused that void energy to her hands and soon enough a glowing purple sphere appeared in her grasp. she swiftly spun on her toes and launched the Ball of energy at the group behind her, decimating the majority of them while a few had gotten out of range of the blast, but hadn't escaped her hand cannon. By the time she turned around the female Kell had her hand cannons all focused on Hinata, one pressed firmly into her forehead.

"Awoken…. Woman has trespass. Awoken woman will… die. Krux, Kell of house kings. Give no mercy to Awoken." The Kell stated oddly in english. "I'm not an awoken…" Hinata whispered but the Kell shook her head. "White glowing eyes, Shimmering… skin. Awoken. Awoken try take Krux Stone. Awoken will die Awoken can't have Krux stone." Krux, as hinata now knew this Kell by, stated angrily. Krux reached to pull the trigger, but an ominous purple blade shot from beside Hinata, flew right in front of the kell, and then was returned to the person who appeared behind the Kell.

Krux fell to her knees as Ko hovered around her head, scanning the fallen kell as Hinata watched him carefully, her heart beating right out of her chest. Krux wasn't dead, but she wasn't going to be moving for a while either. "Hinata…" a familiar voice called out to her and her eyes began to water. "Sasuke…" she whispered as she began to see blackened spots in her vision. She didn't hit the ground however, Sasuke had caught her before she could.

:-:-:-:-:-:

It had been dark for the longest time, and he wasn't sure where he was now. He could no longer feel the resonating souls of Naruto and Sakura, He couldn't even really feel Hinata's anymore. He did, however, Notice his body had been moved from his grave site. He could hear the chatter between a feminine creature and a smaller group of male creatures. He could relatively make out what the female was saying, seeing as her speech was a mashup of languages. She more often than not spoke of her stone, her blue stone. She would tell the others not to touch her stone.

He had come to wonder if he was in fact this stone she was so protective of. After who knows how long of being there, he felt that familiar jolt in his ethereal form. He began to get excited, seeing as this may be Hinata coming to save him. He could also feel two smaller entities there with her, both of which vanished the moment the doors opened. Not long after his spirit was set free of the blue crystal he had been trapped in. He watched in mildly stifled amazement as his body began to reform.

"A hunter." The darker colored mechanical creature said with a pleased tone. Ebony colored armor formed over his body, and a small white cloak fell over his head to rest at its end at his shoulder blades. He eyed his gauntlets and boots, finding them more comfortable than they look. "Crouch, Hunter." The small mechanical creature demanded smoothly. "What are you?" Sasuke asked with a grumble. "I'm your ghost, I am here to keep you alive; so if you would like to stay alive I would highly recommend you crouch." the ghost said and Sasuke sighed, but did as requested.

He didn't feel any different, but when he glanced down and could no longer see his feet, he supposed maybe this ghost wasn't so bad after all. He stood and made his way to where he felt Hinata's presence the most. When he got there he saw the feminine creature that had been holding him there. He lunged forward in his invisible state and threw the blade that formed in his grasp, the reflection of his reddened eyes still mirrored in the blade as it flew in front of the creature. A familiar Flash of purple and his trusty blade came flying back to him as he found himself on the other side of the creature. The creature fell to her knees and so did Hinata, but before Hinata could hit the ground, he caught her.

She just looked so happy to see him, and it made his ache dull the slightest bit. "I'm sorry I had let you slip. I didn't mean to let go… I will never fail you again, Thatis a promise." He whispered as he set her down. He turned to the creature that called herself Krux. "So you held me hostage, huh?" he grumbled as he lifted her head to him using his blade. "What an odd creature you are…" He said and she looked up at him with her multiple eyes. "You are going to kill Krux, No?" She asked and he looked down at her in slight disgust. "Please, don't kill her, Sasuke." Hinata murmured as she sat in front of the much larger being behind her. "Guardian… I do not understand your reasoning." Sasuke's Ghost said as it hovered around her. "The fallen deserve to live as well, they may have done wrong to other guardians but I suppose that this wrong has been done because the guardians rightfully fear them." Hinata managed softly as she looked up at the hunched over creature behind her.

"Suppose that we are only acting in fear of one another… I believe that not all of the Fallen are evil, there may be a few, but I doubt all of them are seeking harm on us. She was protecting a stone… that is why she felt threatened by me…" Hinata said and Krux weakly lifted her head to watch Hinata. "Krux stone… now destroyed…" she said and Hinata frowned and looked up at the larger being. "Forgive me… I did not mean for it to be destroyed." Hinata said. The large kell watched her in silence. "Awoken do not apologize. Awoken is strange…" She said and Hinata watched her oddly.

"What are the Awoken?" Sasuke asked and The Kell slowly looked at him. "Shiny people, Glowing eyes, some white, some orange, red and blue too, Pompous behavior. That… is Awoken." She said and Sasuke raised a brow. "That's nothing like Hinata, though. I'm not sure you really understand her…" Sasuke said in that tone of voice Hinata remembered well. "If weren't human, would have thought you were Awoken." Krux managed and Hinata released a small giggle. "That's Sasuke for you though." She said then shoved herself to her feet. The Kell tried to stand as well, but Sasuke forced her back to the ground. "No one said you could stand…" Sasuke said and The kell looked to Hinata. "Woman spared Krux. She… Understands. I protect… good… human." Krux said and Hinata offered Krux a hand, much to Sasuke's dismay. But there wasn't very much he could say, because once Hinata had made up her mind on helping something he knew she wouldn't be swayed.

"Krux, Kell of house kings is Kell no more." She said and Hinata shook her head. "You don't have to drop your title." Hinata said and Krux shook her head. "Krux is leaving the wolves and kings. Skolas cause much trouble, Taniks too. Krux wants no part. Krux will join humans, Just as Variks has." She said and made her way to the back of the room. "Krux will bow before the queen, but will also protect human if human calls. The guardians dislike Krux, so she will stay unseen." She said as she typed in a code in the back wall behind her throne.

The wall proceeded to vanish and a large vortex of blue energy appeared behind the opening of the false wall. "Krux Will leave, but leaves…. Nata... a gift for sparing Krux life…" She said and a glowing object began to form, but then dropped two purple engrams. "Krux collects… Shiny orbs too…" She said as another set of engrams fell from the light, these two were yellow instead of purple, blue, green, or white. "Thank you, Krux." Hinata said but Krux stopped before she entered said vortex. "Do not thank, Krux did nothing. Hinata… spare Krux, Krux thanks you." She said then walked into the vortex. Krux vanished from sight and Hinata frowned as she watched her leave.

"Ok… so what was that thing, Who is Taniks, and who is Skolas? And… The Queen? Variks?" Sasuke asked in a highly unamused tone. Hinata stood to her full height after gathering the engrams and storing them away in her gauntlets. She turned to him and her lips began to tremble, her eyes beginning to water up once more. She then lunged forwards and engulfed the taller male in a tight hug, taking him by surprise. "You don't hate me?" he asked and she shook her head which was still buried in his chest. "But I let go…" He said and she sobbed into him. "But you didn't mean to… It wasn't your fault, I promise I never blamed you." she said and he frowned deeply and wrapped his arms tightly around her, one arm wrapped around her head and his hand softly gripping the top of her head. "No one ever deserves half the kindness you give, especially not me…" he muttered into her hair and she shook her head.

"You're my friend… You fought by my side to protect me, even if we failed… I respect you and I would never want anything to happen to you…" she said and he released her, taking a small step back in the process. She wiped her eyes and beamed up at him. "I suffered slowly, dying of an unknown and possibly incurable disease. I thought that dying in such a way was punishment for failing to pull you up…" He said and she looked at him with shocked and appalled eyes. "But, even though I suffered for years in the back room of my home, your children stopped by to visit for years after I failed you." he said and a small smile graced her lips.

"Himawari would sing the song you always sang when you tended to your gardens, Bolt would come by to see Sarada and tell me of his missions and how well they went. He excelled swiftly, but not as swiftly as his younger sister. Who, by the way, looked just like you." he said and hinata's eyes shone with pride. "She hit Jonin status before bolt had even been considered for chunin." sasuke said with a slight chuckle, since he figured this would have been how it would have happened either way.

"Who did they marry?" She asked with Glittery yet curious eyes. He supposed she had figured something out. "Bolt married Sarada, I offered my blessing and Sakura was just ecstatic." he said and she repressed a smile. "Himawari married Shikamaru's kid huh?" she asked and he nodded. "Yes although she made him actually work unlike his father." Sasuke sighed and looked around them with a frown. "What is this place… It smells like rust and dirt." he said with a disgusted twitch of the nose. "And also… back to the previous question, do you know what Krux was talking about?" He asked and she shook her head.

"I have no idea… Skolas? Taniks? We will have to ask The Speaker…" Ko interrupted and They looked at him. "But the Queen… I do know of her. She and her Brother single handedly protected the Reef and the Awoken." Ko said before he hovered off out the door that Krux had left through. "Hinata there's a chest in here." He said and she nodded and followed through. Sasuke followed after, not wanting anything to happen to her on his watch. He watched as she shoved open the chest and his gauntlets made a noise. He looked down and glimmer was flashing on his screen. "I will explain later, Did any weapons flash on your screen as well?" she asked and he shrugged which h=earned him a sigh.

She turned to him and began typing on his screen only for a something to begin forming in his grasp. He jumped ever so slightly, which earned him a giggle. "It's called the Painted MOS, A hand cannon. Take care of it, it will be the only one you will have for a while." she said and he shrugged releasing his hold on the weapon as it vanished from sight and back into his engram storage. She didn't seem to be as nervous and fidgety as he had remembered her to be but that was alright she still seemed to be Hinata.

She looked straight up at the sky from the circular tube leading right up to the surface. "That's how she got out so fast, I thought she had a ketch or something hovering up there." Ko said and hinata smiled. "I was curious of it too. Now I know that we can leave in a similar manner." she said and typed on her gauntlets, the Eon Trespass shot overhead then slowed to hover over the tunnel. Sasuke stepped over to look up as well and was caught by surprise to find that he himself was being lifted off the ground and being transported into the ship. He gently hit his feet within the ship and stared around at all the flashing lights, screens, and buttons all over the place. "You know what, I'm not even going to try to figure this out yet. I think I will wait." Sasuke sighed as he sat in one of the few swiveling chairs near the front of the ship. Hinata shook her head with a small smile. "Don't worry you really won't have to do much, your Ghost drives it for you." She said and pointed at Ko who was scanning the module in the front. "Ah, I see, That's a relief." he said and she nodded.

"So what is this place, where are we going, and why are we actually alive?" He asked and she shrugged. "I actually don't know much other than we are special and they need our help, so I was going to offer my assistance any way I could have. The speaker however discovered my greater purpose…" she said and sasuke watched her in interested silence. "I made quite the spectacle I suppose… The nine tail's chakra, The Susanoo's chakra, Ino's image, Gaara's image, sakura's… Shikamaru's… I suppose I was only brought back to be a locator…" she sighed and he narrowed his eyes at her. "Stop lying to yourself." He snarled and she looked at him with saddened eyes.

"But it's true… I died first last time, what's to stop me from dying this time after I gather the group together?" she asked and he glared at her once more. "Me, I am here to stop anything from happening to you! I let you down once! I refuse to let you go again!" He snarled and she stared at him with wide eyes. "Sasuke… It's alright…" she began slowly, her path of speech not yet chosen, but she knew where she was going to go with it. "Just because Naruto is your best friend doesn't mean you have to treat me like I matter to you…" she finished, her tone saddened, but firm.

"Don't you dare go there, I am talking about you right now, not him. I swear if you go and try to sacrifice yourself for one of us…" He began with an angered snarl, which caught her off guard. The next thing he said however, made her realize just how serious he was about this topic.

"I will kill myself too."

That was the last thing that was said the entire ride to the tower, she didn't want to make him say anything else she would regret, That last statement was definitely one she would regret making him say…

:-:-:-:

The Speaker eyed Sasuke Wearily, the dark gaze that stared back at him in everything but amusement wasn't one he preferred to see. His eyes glanced over to the group that was eyeing both he and this newcomer curiously. The tallest of the four was a Warlock, a well-known warlock, his personality and sense of companionship set him aside from the others he had met. His name was Loki and just as you would picture, he donned long evergreen robes, and donned the most peculiar helm of gold and green. He supposed Loki's creativity had kicked in and he had painted that odd ram helm green and gold to match that of the apparel of the God Loki himself. He wouldn't mind speaking with that guardian, but some of his company wasn't to be quite so admired.

It wasn't until Loki had stepped out from in front of her, that the speaker had seen her though… His younger sister, who happened to be very picky on the pronunciation of her name and her height as well. She wasn't the bad company Loki was with, though if you said her name wrong or called her short she had quite the fiery temper. Her name was Asura and she was very much a replica of the olden Japanese god as well as her brother was for Loki. She was a titan who refused to wear titan marks, instead she would wear the Hunter cloaks, it did something for her he supposed.

His eyes then drifted towards the third member of the group, despite this one being the youngest of the group, the siblings of the group seemed to get along a lot better with this young titan rather than the last member of their squad. He supposed it was something about Dani's energetic demeanor that made him such a likable guy. he supposed.

The last one was a Hunter, donning the Osiris armor, which was colored purple. He appeared to be an annoyed Awoken half breed with dark hair and dark eyes to match. He supposed he already knew who that Hunter was, judging by his troll-ish personality he knew it had to be Lion. The speaker was in no mood to deal with that particular Hunter at this very moment, so he chose to focus himself on studying the newcomer before him, deep down though… he was hoping Lion would go away somewhere…

The hunter soon lost interest and he left, much to the Speaker's relief. His friends however, stalled for a moment but then followed suit, the speaker supposed they were just sizing up the newcomers, seeing as each of them were rank thirty four, which is the highest rank a guardian has gotten at this very moment. The ranking system was based on skill and as of this moment, none of them have progressed past this current skill set. The speaker however foresaw the coming of the graduation of that skill set, and it instilled a weary fear in him that it may not be one of his original guardians to break that level, but one of these newcomers.

Now it may seem as if he was weary of the newcomers, but he wasn't. He was more so worried about the darkness that was coming that was going to boost the current ranking system into overdrive. That is what the Speaker feared. He didn't believe the traveler was healing fast enough to defend against the darkness yet. "The traveler calls you the dark one…" The speaker said as he turned his gaze back to Sasuke. Hinata donned a saddened look, and the speaker supposed that there was something dark about the man before him that she knew of. The man before him however, showed no interest in anything but her. "The traveler says you just have this… feeling to you that screams dark… but the traveler wants us to trust you. And I suppose the reason we should trust you is because of the power I can feel radiating off of you." He said and a smirk crossed Sasuke's lips.

Hinata grasped Sasuke's forearm and she gave him a pleading look. "Well I suppose you two should go so you can show him around the tower. Goodbye miss Hinata." The speaker said and she smiled at him before they left.

"You saw the videos his ghost sent didn't you?" Kris asked as the speaker made his way up the set of stairs to his desk. "Yes… That is quite a fearsome ability, and it seems as if he isn't afraid to brag about it." The speaker said and looked back over to the projected video on repeat on one of the orbs nearest him. Sasuke had stepped in front of Hinata as she had been attacked by a group of the Hive's knights. His eye had flashed and the Knights had burst into blackened flames. That, however… wasn't what had killed the Knights…

What had killed them was the blade that had formed in the hand of the fragment of the skeleton that had appeared around him. "What exactly are these people?" Kris asked and the speaker shook his head. "Our saviors… Kris… They will exalt the darkness…" the speaker said and looked at the young man near him. "I wonder what the healers, the fox, the sandman, and the shadow master will be like…" Kris said and the speaker sat down. "The sandman, or Gaara as Hinata called him should be an interesting one. I believe his best attack strategy would be on mars. The shadow master, or Shikamaru… this is going to be quite an interesting group I must say… I've never heard of anyone as strong as these people." The speaker said and Kris grinned.

"If they can actually band together and save the traveler and the human race… I have no idea what will actually happen but I think I would cry." Kris laughed and the speaker released a chuckle. "I happen to agree… I believe many tears will be shed on the glorious day that we are saved from this darkness…"

:-:-:-:-:

"So I have a question for you two." The white haired girl said as she stalked over to where Hinata and Sasuke were sitting on the railing of the tower overlooking the city below. "What would that be?" Hinata asked with a small smile as Asura plopped down on the ground near them. "You two knew each other in your past life right? Kinda like me and Loki did but you two were friends right?" she asked and Hinata nodded, Sasuke only stared at the white haired woman. "Get to the point." Sasuke said and her eyes flashed dangerously. "Oh, so you think you're a bad ass do you? Just hold on, I was trying to ask a friendly question that could help you in your endeavors, but since you're going to be that way I'm going to leave." She said with a roll of the eyes.

"I don't need help from some weak little girl." He sneered and she gave him an unamused look. "Weak?" she asked and tapped on the screen of her gauntlets and shoved them in his face. "I'm a higher rank than you. Don't you dare belittle me." she said as she stood and grabbed a hold of his short hunter cloak. "Be a douche all you want, but in this world… that gets your comrades to drop you off on the moon and leave you. I was just going to inform you that there was something there that may interest you." She said then released him and turned away. "Asura are you alright?" Loki asked and she nodded. "Yes, I was just trying to inform them of their possible friend that's dead on the moon, but I guess some people don't lose their personality in death." She said and turned to walk away.

"We will settle this in the crucible later." She called behind her and Hinata froze. "Sasuke…" she called and he glanced at her. "Hm?" "I won't survive in the crucible… you're fighting against other guardians." She said and he shook his head. "We aren't going to the crucible." He said and patted her on the head. "I wouldn't subject you to that…" he said and she nodded. "Hey Asura." Sasuke called and she turned to face him. "What now?" she snapped and he rolled his eyes.

"Where is this guardian at on the moon?" he asked and she raised a brow at him. "What's in it for me? You just shit talked me to my face." She said and he sighed. He pecked through his inventory and tossed her a hand cannon. "Holy shit…" she exclaimed and looked up at him. "You would give this to me? Just for me to say where they are?" she asked and he shrugged. A frown crossed her lips and she shook her head. She handed the weapon back to him and nodded. "You keep it. You'll need it." she said and Sasuke raised a brow at her. "You're not so bad after all I suppose. You're just a straight to the point kind of guy." She said and he shrugged.

"There's a titan, they're trapped in a crystal in the Temple of Crota. The stranger said it was important for them to be freed. I would have, but I couldn't get through the crystal. The ghost was imbedded in it as well. I guess crystallized guardians are your thing." Asura said and tossed them a salute before she trekked back over to her squad. "What a strange girl…" Sasuke sighed and Hinata laughed. "She wouldn't have been so bad had you not been so rude." She said and he shrugged. "I'm not a people person."

"I know… I wonder who it is." Hinata said and Sasuke sighed. "If she said titan there are only two people I can think of being classified as a titan…" he said and Hinata thought for a moment and her eyes held an unreadable look, but a small smile crossed her lips.

"Sakura or Naruto." Was all she said and he nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

The Forceful one

When they hit the surface of the moon Hinata looked around curiously. "What's wrong?" Sasuke asked her and she frowned. "This version of the moon is much different than the one Toneri and Naruto fought on. This one is more… Civilized." She said and he shrugged. "I was never here, so I wouldn't know. All I knew is that he had taken you." Sasuke said and Hinata shook her head. "I went willingly." She said and summoned her sparrow. Sasuke watched her silently, but he also kept an eye out for anything that could be a danger to them. He wasn't going to release the bitter reply to her statement.

He watched as Hinata's eyes flickered around the place more often than not, he understood that she was weary. Nothing was happening yet so he was noticeably uneasy as well. "Sasuke, theres movement over there." Hinata said and pointed towards a smaller building past the one in front of them that looked like some sort of bridge leading from one building to a smaller one at the opposite end. He felt the pulse of chakra that said Hinata was using her Byakugan and he repressed a smirk.

"Its Ashura. I wonder why she is here…" Hinata said and then her brows furrowed "What is that?" she murmured and started that direction on her sparrow, Sasuke following close behind on his own. they reached the area Ashura was fighting at only to realize she didn't need their help. she shoulder charged the blade off his feet, only to jump and use her fist of havoc on it.

She dusted her hands off then turned towards Sasuke and Hinata. "Ok… So you're not going to see much of me, Loki, Lion, or Dani. We have other things to do, but I thought I would show you where the titan was. We stumbled upon the remains a while back but we didn't have the ghost to revive them. When we figured out where the ghost was… they kinda sealed the titan within some sort of freaky green crystal." She said then flipped her cloak over her shoulder and winced.

"Hey uh… you guys don't see my arm around here anywhere… do you?" she asked and Hinata blinked at her only to realize that she had a circular mechanical stump a few inches below her actual arm. There were mechanical fingers meddling with the wiring there, but from the arm on the opposite side. "That's why they call you Ashura…" Sasuke said and she watched him for a moment before she gave him a curt nod. Hinata jogged over to her with her mechanical arm which donned gauntlets that matched the ones her actual flesh arms wore.

She held the end of the arm out to the circuits and the wires instantly began to connect once more, but then with a vicious jerk and a twist, her arm reconnected and it appeared painful. Hinata grimaced at the look on Ashura's face. "What? A second set of arms doesn't come cheap, there's always a sacrifice." She said then turned and shook out her mechanical arms.

"How did you get that mechanical leg, Ashura?" Sasuke asked and she frowned beneath her helm. "There are some things that a revival by ghost cannot fix." she said and continued on walking. Sasuke didn't ask any more questions because he knew with that one he had crossed a personal line. When they reached the temple of Crota he felt an odd chill go down his spine as the doors cracked open.

"Get behind me." He ordered and the two followed his command. The doors swung open and then he flew into hand signs. He took a deep breath and released it as a grand ball of fire escaped his lips and disintegrated the hive that came rushing out.

"Uh… wow… I guess y'all are some hella special." Ashura murmured from behind him. "Wait so you people have abilities but none like ours? What the?" he began but a swift green ghost shot past him, or so it seemed. There was no ghost there, it was just a recording projected from somewhere up above the rocks. Sasuke turned to see what was projecting from there, but nothing was there.

"I saw her… I actually saw her this time." Hinata whispered and Sasuke glanced at her oddly. "Who?" he asked and Ashura frowned. "That strange exo hunter… She appears everywhere. She doesn't stay long though. She called me strange because she couldn't decipher whether I was human or exo." She said and Sasuke nodded.

He looked forwards and saw a glimmer of green across the way. "The ghost is over there, so the titan should be around here somewhere." He said and they nodded. They slipped into the room and glanced around them as to be sure they were alone. They made their way up the stairs and saw the titan stuck in the crystal.

"Alright well I guess this is where I go then…" Ashura said with a sigh and they looked at her. "Why?" They asked and she shrugged. "I don't suppose you need me anymore." she said and Hinata shook her head. "We never said that." She said, but then a wizard screeched and grabbed the crystal and flew down into the lower levels with it.

"Damn it." Sasuke muttered and Hinata glanced over at Ashura who had jumped over the edge to follow. Hinata jumped over as well, following the other girl. This in turn, forced Sasuke to follow. He jumped down and followed the path that he knew the girls had most likely taken. He heard Ashura's familiar grunt of annoyance and he quickened his pace, only to see that she had just shoulder charged a wizard right out of the air. He was mildly impressed, but he continued to search for Hinata, who was nowhere in sight.

He caught a glance of her just as she had dropped that vortex of energy onto a group of the hive thralls. He had never seen anything like that come from her before and he couldn't help but stare. "Come on emo kid, that's something all warlocks can do. We have to go if we want to find where they took the titan!" Ashura yelled and he stared at her for a moment before she took off down a set of stairs towards Hinata.

He followed suit and hit the ground at the base of the steps, an odd room lay within and his ghost was saying something about the large orb-like object in the room. "There is something in there I need to scan to identify how to destroy the object above us." His Ghost said and he nodded, releasing the small mechanical creature to do what it needed to. A rumble in the foundation of the place made him feel odd, and he looked over to see that Ashura and Hinata were glancing around with suspicious eyes.

The rumbling felt like footsteps and Sasuke glanced up just in time to see a large knight pass through a newly opened doorway. "Shit…" He cursed loudly and Ashura looked up and sighed. "Great… Just great… And I thought Kells were huge…" She complained and went through her weapons to pick out a shotgun called the Matador. "Won't you have to get really close to use that? Do you really think that's safe?" Hinata asked softly and Ashura shrugged. "If not then just revive me. As long as I have my ghost you can bring me back." She said and Hinata nodded.

"Hinata, try and find his weak points, alright?" Sasuke said and she nodded. "You don't think your Amaterasu will work on him, do you?" She asked and he shook his head. "No… But I think something else will." He said and she nodded. "Ashura I would recommend staying back, just in case…" Hinata said and she nodded, but didn't seem to appreciate the advice given to her by a lower ranking guardian. Hinata didn't really say anything else to her, noticing the annoyance she had received.

She instead pulled out her Ice Breaker and began to take aim. "The chest and head are where his weak spots are." Hinata said, and no sooner than had those words escaped her, Ashura was gone. Sasuke cursed under his breath as he noticed she was attempting to shoot the giant creature in the face. The creature swatted her away and he grit his teeth. He then noticed that his Ghost was finished with its assignment and was awaiting his command.

He glanced at Hinata, who had greatly weakened the creature using her rifle, and she nodded at him. He lunged out of the small space with four hallways. The creature looked down at him and released a snarky sounding laugh. This made Sasuke raise a brow. This creature didn't think he could bring him down.

"Ashura, gather your Havoc ability. Hinata, gather your void ability. We need to use all three of our abilities to take this thing down." Sasuke said and the two girls nodded. Hinata Gathered the ball of void energy within her hands, as Ashura repeatedly gathered the sparking energy of her Fist of Havoc in hers. The hands of her mechanical limbs sparked as well as she repeatedly fisted and unfisted each hand.

With a nod, the two girls took forwards, Hinata reared back to throw the nova bomb; and Ashura fisted each of her hands and did a drop right on top of the head of the creature. Ashura's attack made it stumble; Hinata's had it clutching its face. Sasuke the pulled his blade and lunged forwards, his blade sparking with the blinding energy of lightning.

He then proceeded to decapitate said creature in a moment's notice. The large Knight hit its knees and fell to its side with a loud crash. They then turned to see the crystal that the guardian was trapped within was within the large orb. Hinata wasted no time shooting the orb with her Hawkmoon hand cannon. Sasuke jumped up there and grabbed the crystal before it could hit the ground.

He set it against the ground and reared back to punch it, but Hinata grabbed his hand and gave him a look. "Please don't. You will break your fingers." she said softly and he watched her for a moment then stepped away from the crystal. He watched as she carefully held her Ghost out to scan the crystal. His Ghost appeared and began to do the same. After seeing what they were doing, Ashura summoned her Ghost and allowed it to do the same. After a little bit, the crystal began to fall away.

The emerald colored Ghost that had been above the guardian within the stone shakily hovered for a moment, then turned and split open into smaller pieces, which didn't shock Hinata or Ashura, but had captured Sasuke's full attention. He reached out and touched the Ghost only for it to snap closed once more and a deep breath fill the air as the titan shot up.

"Ugh… Took you long enough." She grumbled and Sasuke didn't repress the rolling of his eyes beneath his helm. "You're very welcome, Sakura." He said with a slightly amused tone and her head shot up. "There is no way in hell…"She began and Hinata giggled lightly. "Hinata? Sasuke?" She asked and they nodded. "No way…" She began and then stood abruptly. "What is going on here?" She asked and they shrugged, they had no clue, none whatsoever as to what was actually going on.

"So you guys were like friends in your past life? I thought it was strange that you all knew each other, but weren't related. The only ones in the tower who remember anyone from their past lives are the siblings." Ashura said and then rubbed her helmet. "You know, Like Kris and Eren, And Loki and I… I thought that you could only remember family. But… This… What you all are… Is different…" She said and they nodded.

"Well… I think that we should go tell the speaker that we killed this thing…" She began and watched the three, each had some sort of tension between the others and she knew they could all feel said tension. "And I believe, Sakura was it?" She asked and upon receiving a nod, continued. "Needs some better armor…" she said and the three nodded. Sasuke held out his hand and summoned his ship, as did Hinata and Ashura. Sakura was teleported up with Hinata.

"Hey, also…"Ashura began, "The stranger said to give you guys a message." She said and they each listened in silence. "She wants you to meet her on Venus, Specifically Ishtar Sink, Venus." Ashura had said before sending over the coordinates.

:-:-:-:-:

Hinata watched the Pinkette and the speaker interact amiably. Sasuke however was still a bit… indifferent at the fact she was here. Hinata supposed he didn't really know what to say, especially since he had told Hinata he was going to do whatever it took to keep her alive, even if he had to die for her. It was odd hearing him say that to her, and maybe she was just overly romanticizing things again, but that seemed like something you would tell your wife, which just happened to be standing in front of the two of them at this very moment.

Sakura made no advances towards Sasuke, much unlike Hinata had thought she would. She watched the pinkette with confusion in her gaze. Every time Sakura glanced at Hinata or Sasuke the only thing she could see was sadness and guilt. Hinata didn't understand this and shrugged it off as something Sakura and Sasuke needed to discuss on their own. She heard the Speaker ask Sakura what the Traveler meant when it called her the Forceful one. A glimmer flashed through Sakura's eyes and she smiled brightly.

"She doesn't need to show you while in the tower. You will have destruction on the caliber of earth if you do." Sasuke interjected and The speaker nodded. Sakura however, was highly unamused and had turned towards Sasuke with a disgruntled look. "Buzz kill." She grumbled and he rolled his eyes. "I'm only trying to spare him the massive cleanup. We will have plenty of time to show off what you can do when we get to Venus." Sasuke said and Hinata nodded with a small smile. Sakura shrugged and nodded. Either way, she was going to be entertained after having been deceased for so long.

"Venus, you said?" the speaker asked and they nodded. "Yeah, some strange Exo told Ashura to tell us we needed to go to Venus." Sakura said and The speaker eyed her for a moment then nodded. "I suppose this person also warned you all about the Vex and their god?" He asked and they shook their heads. "She may have told Ashura though, so we will go see what all she knows then we will head out." Hinata said and the Speaker shook his head.

"You need to let Sasuke and Sakura rest. They haven't had a chance to find the barracks yet, Hinata. I understand that you want to get this all settled as swiftly as possible, but you need rest and so do they. You should go speak with Ikora, and the other Vanguard leaders." The Speaker said and Hinata blushed but nodded. "I'm sorry Sasuke, Sakura…" she said and Sakura smiled at her. "Don't sweat it,I think I understand your hurry." Sakura said and Hinata sighed.

"Here, follow me, I can take you to where Ashura hangs out." Hinata said and they nodded. They strolled up the steps on the far right side of the tower, down the small hallway, and past both the Shipwright and Dead orbit. There were chairs and booths lined up along the walls and a bar in the far back. Ashura was sitting in a booth in the far back corner, while Loki and Lion sat right at the bar.

"You know, I think you only try to fix those broken down scrap metal arms of yours because you're too cheap to buy better metal for them." Lion said as he glanced towards Ashura, who was dressed in uncommon attire for a guardian. Her left leg was entirely exposed and she was currently working on screwing something into the circuit board on the outer thigh. "Shut it will ya? This has nothing to do with cost." She replied in a snarky tone and he shrugged.

"Obviously cost isn't a thing since you dropped Xur thirty four strange coins for those gauntlets." Loki said offhandedly as he sipped his drink. "Yeah, ok and? It's none of your business what I will and won't spend my money on lion. So really, just chill." she said and pulled The left mechanical arm off of her side with a wince. "Does it hurt?" Sakura asked her and her head shot up, as did Loki's and Lion's. "Yeah… It hurts a lot at times, but when you not only have mechanicals fluids in your system, but also human blood… things tend to… disagree." Ashura said and Loki frowned.

"But as I said, they have the spin metal alloy that could cut down on some of that." Loki said and Ashura sighed. "Ok… I know… But I need something stronger than spin metal. Being as why I keep talking to Banshee. He knows of something that could help me… Or more importantly, a certain someone." She said and they sighed.

"He will not help you, Ashura." Lion said with a nonchalant shrug. "How do you know?" She snapped and they sighed and shook their heads. "Do you not remember the last time we encountered him? He didn't seem too thrilled to see a guardian anywhere near his home." Loki said and she frowned. She tossed her mechanical leg down and spun towards the trio that had sought her out.

"So, what is it that you guys need?" she asked and Sakura frowned. "Uh… What exactly did the stranger say?" she asked and Ashura tucked her cloak over her shoulder as she shoved the previously dislocated mechanical limb back into its socket with a grunt. Hinata watched as the darker liquid entered her bloodstream and caused havoc upon her body. "You're poisoning yourself…" Danny sighed as he walked in. "Yeah… I know." She said but then turned to the trio once more.

"Danny, once they are all rested up will you lead them to the Ishtar sink?" she asked and he nodded. "Sure, I can show them where to go, as long as I don't die and they don't leave me if I do." He said and Hinata smiled. "I won't leave you, I promise." Hinata said and Danny nodded. "Anyways, She said you need to meet her at Ishtar sink, to destroy a vex conflux or something. Then she said something about the reef and the awoken, and something about them knowing how you can reach what you're needing to reach." Ashura said then she looked over at them.

"If they open the reef to the guardians… I want to be the first to know." She said and both Loki and Lion glared at her while Danny sighed. "Anyways, as I was saying… I want to know if they open the reef, if he can help me, I'm going to go see him." She said and Loki took a breath to say something but didn't utter a word. "He's not going to help you." Lion said as he spun around on his bar stool. "You wouldn't know, you just set him off is all, you do every time you see him. That's why he wouldn't help YOU!" she snapped and stood. She grabbed her cloak and slipped it on, once she was actually wearing it, Hinata realized it was made from a similar material to that of the stranger's. It was only a darker color.

"Hey Ashura… Where do you find materials of that grade?" Hinata asked and she went frigid. She pursed her lips and rubbed her cloak between two fingertips. "If you can get them to open the reef, I will show you. But… For now…We are banned from the reef, due to a certain hunter." She said and Loki and Danny sighed, while Lion just smirked. "Hey, Its not my fault he was being a whiny-" Lion began with a shrug but she glared at him. "Don't you dare." she snarled and he snorted. "Why do you care? The guy never looked your way, never said a word to you, and yet you just seem sooo…." he began then looked up at the ceiling in thought. "In love with the jerk." he said and she sneered at him.

"You have no idea what you're talking about!" She snapped and he shrugged. "You getting all pissy over it is proof enough for me." he said and she gritted her teeth audibly. "I'm dying Lion, I'm dying in a way that even if my ghost tries to revive me, I will just die again… and again. Only, I will die faster and faster each time. At some point… It will get so bad, that I won't be able to be revived at all." She said while fisting her hands. "So, if there is a rumor about someone who knows a way to be able to save me… I'm going to jump at the chance." She said and Lion rolled his eyes.

"So much drama." he said and before she could A. toss a fist into his face, B. Yell/ scream, or C. all out just murder him, Danny grabbed her and ushered her out of the bar, Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata close behind. "Ok, time to go. We don't need this right now. You know if you continue to be this way that you will only spread that stuff around your body faster." Danny sighed and she looked at him with apologetic eyes. "I'm sorry Danny." she sighed and he nodded.

"For now let's go discuss things in the Barracks." He said and they nodded.

:-:-:-:

Ashura sat on a random bunk with shorts on and a t-shirt, while Danny sat in full battle rattle. Hinata, Sakura, and Sasuke, However, were enjoying the feeling of being out of the armor and in civilian clothes for the moment. "Oh my gosh… Sweat pants feel so amazing…" Sakura sighed as she flopped backwards on the bunk in the room they had claimed as theirs. there were six beds, but until they went to search for the last member of their group, this would be just fine. "So… A group of six people is called a fire team?" Sakura asked as she rolled over to face Danny and Ashura. The two nodded in an iffy manner.

"A fire team can have as many as six people in it, but it's rare you have any more than that. Not everyone in the tower gets along as well as the traveler and speaker would have hoped. Take Lion for instance. It's extremely rare you find someone able to tolerate him." Danny said and she nodded. "I can tell…' She said, then looked over at Ashura, who didn't seem to want to pay all that much attention at the moment. "Hinata, will you get me a basin of water, please?" she asked and the blunette nodded.

Sakura stood and walked over to Ashura, and with a swift jolt of her arm, the albino looking woman hit the bed unconscious. Danny looked at her, eternally freaked out. "What the hell, lady!?" he yelped and she shrugged. "She's not dead, just… forcefully sleeping." Sakura said but Danny didn't seem to like where this was going. "Listen, I'm not going to hurt her, I'm just going to try and ease her pain for the time being…" She said and he frowned.

"She's going to be so mad when she wakes up." He said and Sasuke sighed. "Yeah well… She will thank us later." He sighed as Hinata returned with the basin of water and Sakura set to work on the unconscious woman. As soon as she had actually begun pulling the mechanical fluids from Ashura's form, Sakura was taken aback by the thick inky black liquid she was dropping into the bowl. "How long has she been in the tower like this?" Sakura asked and Danny frowned. "I met her two years ago doing patrol in the vault of glass on Venus." he said and Sakura frowned. "She's been here about that long." He said and she nodded.

"She's trying to make herself immune to the stuff, but it's only making her worse. She's trying to get the Prince to pay her some sort of mind because he has helped someone before in a situation similar to hers, but we all know he won't help her. He despises guardians." Danny sighed and looked at his friend. "Personally, I think her reasoning for wanting to go to the reef is to see him for more than one reason. Similar to the reason Lion and Loki want to go… In Lion's words… He said he would bang the queen…." Danny said with a sigh and Sakura snorted with an eye roll.

"Typical men." she said and Danny rolled his eyes. "Sure, she's pretty, but… I'm gay. And I honestly don't want to touch something that bleeds for a week and gets insanely irate during that time. It's weird. I don't understand how you can bleed for a week and not die of blood loss or something." He said and noticed Sasuke lightly chuckling beneath his hand. Hinata was red in the face, as was Sakura. "What?" he asked and they shook their heads. "Nothing… but… You have an interesting take on that…" Sakura said in a slightly amused way.

"There, she should be fine for a while." Sakura said with a small satisfied smile. "She should be fine long enough to talk to that prince and see if he will help." Sakura said and Danny sighed.

"He's not going to help." Danny sighed and Sakura shrugged. "Who knows, If I don't like his answer to her… he may not have another answer to give." Sakura said and chill ran down Danny's spine. This was a frightening woman. "Um… I think you and Ashura would get along just well..." Danny said with a look in his eyes, that Sasuke recognized well. "Well, I'm going to take her to her room, and I will meet up with you guys in the morning. Get some rest. It is going to be a long day tomorrow." he said and the three nodded.

Sakura was still concentrating on tapping the side of the bowl, and watching the slow ripple pattern cross the surface of the disgusting black liquid. she dipped her finger into the bowl and the liquid clung to her skin, staining it a darkened color as well. "She needs help…" Sakura whispered and Sasuke watched her carefully. "You seem distant with me, Sakura. You have yet to actually speak to me." He said and she looked at him while wiping her hands of the liquid in the bowl.

"Yeah, I know… I'm sorry…" She said with saddened eyes. "Are you alright, Sakura?" Hinata asked and she nodded. "Yeah, It's just I feel guilty…" she said and Hinata tilted her head to the side and blinked at her owlishly. "After the two of you died…" She began and looked up at them with sorrow filled eyes. "I married Naruto…" She said and the two exchanged glances.

"Sakura… There is no wrong in remarrying after the death of a loved one…" Hinata said and Sakura stared at her with wide eyes. "I thought you would be so angry with me…" She said and Hinata shook her head rapidly. "No, Never, I'm happy that the two of you settled down together…" She said and Sakura's lip trembled. "I spent my days thinking you would hate me for marrying him… but here you are telling me it's all good." Sakura said and Hinata smiled at her.

"You two deserved it, I could never hate either of you, especially since I died before my children could grow old. Naruto raised them well, yes?" she asked and Sakura nodded rapidly. "Yes!" She exclaimed, and a smile crossed her lips. "Bolt and Sarada married at nineteen." She said and Hinata smiled. "Good, they deserve it as well." Hinata said and Sakura smiled brightly and engulfed the darker haired girl in a hug. "Thank you for being such a wonderful friend, Hinata." She said and Hinata smiled brightly "You too, Sakura-chan."

Sasuke watched Hinata carefully, not quite understanding how she could be so passive about the situation, but then again he could understand what Sakura had meant. He could understand the feeling of being alone and not wanting to be alone anymore. "So when we bring Naruto back… What is going to happen?" Sasuke asked after Hinata had already drifted off to sleep. Sakura looked him dead in the eye and watched him for any readable emotions or signs that he was upset. He seemed to be off, but not in the usual manner of him being 'off'. He gave her one sharp glance then lay back on his bunk. "But I suppose you've already chosen, huh?" He asked and she gave him a sorrowful look before she too lay down and drifted off.

:-:-:-:

Danny led them right to the conflux that would tell their ghosts where they needed to go. "Alright, so before I leave, do you need anything else?" he asked and Hinata shook her head with a small smile. "Alright… You two?" He asked looking over between Sasuke and Sakura, who shook their heads as well, but remained silent. "Alright… well… I guess I will see you guys around." He said and vanished from sight only for his ship to appear overhead, then speed off out of sight.

Sakura and Sasuke exchanged glances then followed Hinata over to the conflux circle, in front of a strange spherical wall. "I suppose you should step within…" Ko said and Hinata nodded as she stepped within the red circle. "Hinata wait, you don't even know what that does." Sasuke said, but she had already stepped into the circle. As the red conflux went down, a white one arose. Static filled the air and Hinata looked around frantically. Body parts of a large Vex began to form and Hinata began stepping backwards away from it.

As soon as the creature formed, it attempted to drop its large mechanical foot right on Hinata, but Sasuke grabbed her and jumped away faster than Hinata could even see. She looked up however, and saw Sakura lunge right for the large vex Gatekeeper. The impact of Sakura's fist hitting said being, Echoed loudly with the crunching of metal, a wail of pain from the creature, and the sound of her fist cracking as her knuckles popped. The creature had screeched out in pain, but as soon as her fist had come away from the creature, It had gone flying straight through the large circular portal behind it, destroying both the portal, the wall behind it, and the creature itself.

"Shannaro!" Sakura exclaimed as she rubbed her fist lightly, but walked over and ripped the head off the Vex Gate lord. There was a silence for a moment before Sakura looked over at both Sasuke and Hinata and grinned while holding the head of the creature. "Mission accomplished." She said and Hinata blinked at her for a moment then giggled and nodded. "I guess we should hit the tower and see what Ashura has to say about this." Sakura said and Hinata nodded while Sasuke shrugged.

When they reached the tower, Ashura told them that they needed to make a visit to the reef, and see what the Queen and her younger brother had to say. Which made the trio, with unanimous sighs of exhaustion or annoyance, take off once more.

:-:-:-:

When they arrived to the Reef, they were immediately escorted to the queen by seemingly irritable awoken women. It also didn't help that Sasuke was mirroring their irritation. Sakura was busy admiring the reef and its strange beauty. Hinata seemed to be the only one paying attention to their surroundings, other than of the actual surroundings. When they reached the queen's chamber, she watched them silently, although her brother; had a disgusted look on his face. That was, until his eyes landed on Hinata.

Prince Uldren's glowing golden eyes didn't once leave the two female guardians. His molten gold orbs flickered from Hinata's Glowing opaque lavender, to Sakura's lively green ones. His eyes then flickered over onto the lone glowing red eye he could see from Sasuke. He could sense the tension between the pinkette and the dark haired man behind her, but the woman in front of the two appeared to either be aware of it, yet, ignoring their tension; or she could possibly be unaware.

However, he doubted she was unaware of their strife. Either way it didn't matter to him though the fact she had just dropped agate lord head in front of them, did. He didn't much like the feel of the other two, but the dark haired woman had soft glowing lavender eyes that eased his distaste ever so slightly. He could feel his sister's gaze on his back as he had swiftly closed the distance between himself and the young woman.

He was about a foot away from her, but the blade at his neck was sharp and icy cold. "Ah, seems the tables have turned." Was all he said as his eyes flicked up to meet with the burning crimson glare he was receiving.

"I was only going to bestow a gift upon the young woman." Uldren said as the guards removed their weapons from the dark haired man's form as Uldren waved them off. "You will refrain from touching her." Sasuke sneered and Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. "Or what?" Uldren asked with an amused undertone.

"Do not challenge me, princess." Sasuke began and Sakura cracked her knuckles. Hinata looked up at Sasuke and she felt guilty for being the reason he reacted this way. "Sasuke... Please stand down. I understand." Hinata's voice came out softly, a small saddened smile on her lips. The blade removed itself from the prince's neck but a small frown crossed the lavender eyed woman's lips.

"Forgive my friends your Grace. Sasuke feels he has to protect me diligently due to an incident in our first life. We meant no disrespect." Hinata said and then turned to slightly glance at her two companions. "And I also would hope to prevent the destruction of any buildings." Hinata said and the queen quirks a brow as Sasuke smirked and Sakura repressed a laugh.

"Forgive us your Grace for any inconvenience to you caused by us." Sasuke says and she nodded. "I am quite interested in you three… We never requested a gate lord eye from you." She said, her voice coming out elegantly. "A friend of ours told us that in order to free our traveler, we needed to find the black garden." Hinata said and the queen nodded in her elegant manner. "very well… I believe This was the woman with the mechanical leg, Ashura, was she not?" The queen asked and they nodded.

"I see… She is very determined to see that garden isn't she?" The queen asked and Hinata shook her head. "No, Your Grace. She is actually only attempting to seek assistance to treat her ailment." Sakura said and the queen's eyes shone brightly. "And she seeks this from us, does she not?" She asked and Sakura nodded. "Well… I actually happen to believe it is not me who she seeks…" The queen said, glancing discreetly at her younger brother.

Uldren turned to her and sent her a questioning glance. "Sister?" He asked and she smiled elegantly. "She knows you've been doing your research, dear brother." She said and he shook his head. "Most definitely not for her though." He spat and the Queen, somehow still elegantly, rolled her eyes. "Very well then brother, if you are going to gift the young woman the eye, do so now." She said and he nodded. "But guardians…" She began and they looked up at her. "Just know, if I ever need assistance, I will call upon you." she said and they nodded. "And I expect you to come." She added as they turned to leave. "Yes, Your Grace, if you ever need us. We will be available." Hinata said with a polite bow. "Good." was the last thing the queen said as she motioned for her brother to escort them out.

A loud thump rang out as Uldren led them out of the Queen's chambers. Hinata swiftly glanced up and saw a familiar creature. "Krux!" She called and the large feminine Kell turned to face her from her table of bowls with some sort of smoke emanating from them. "Ah, Human has returned for Krux, help, yes?" She asked and Hinata frowned. "No, Not today, forgive me Krux…" Hinata said and The Kell patted her on the head gently. "No worries, Krux likes Reef. Much respect Krux gets for being friend of queen." She said and offered a smile but it was a strange one, her being a fallen and all.

"That's good. I'm happy you're doing well here, Krux." Hinata said and Krux nodded. " They gave Krux, real home. Krux is Judgement Kell now. See, Krux Still kell." She said and Hinata beamed up at her while She was so excited over the new house she had gained. "I'm so happy for you, Krux." Hinata said and Krux clapped her hands together. "Ashura… friend of Krux too. Ashura ok?" She asked and Hinata blinked. "Krux can smell, Ashura oily blood." She said and Hinata nodded.

"Good. Good. Ashura met Krux when Ashura visited Uldren with Loki, Lion, Danny. Prince Uldren was not happy with the Lion. The Lion was rude." Krux said and Hinata laughed. "Yes, he is." she replied and Krux patted Hinata on the head once more. "Krux knows Hinata must leave. Krux just wants Hinata to be safe. Come visit Krux again, Yes?" She asked and Hinata nodded.

"Of course, Krux." Hinata said and Krux nodded.


	4. The Dark Heart

The dark heart.

Sakura sighed as she sat on the edge of one of the flower pot looking things with the flag firmly planted within. She kicked her legs back and forth in her bored annoyance. Ashura had lied to them, and yet showed no sympathy or regret for it. She glanced over at Sasuke, who was busy wrapping bandages up one of Hinata's exposed arms. His movements were delicate and cautious, as if he didn't want to hurt her any worse. Sakura wondered if he knew how gentle he was to her, but she doubted he paid that much attention. He had said that he owed her his life. Sakura however, didn't fully agree with that, and she knew Hinata didn't either. Sakura sighed as she spotted a new ship docking at the tower. She supposed whoever this person was, would be set up by the time they got back from the black garden, as the awoken had called it.

She sighed and glanced up at the sky once more, the bright blue hue of the morning sky with its puffy white clouds seemed to calm her, and she could now understand Shikamaru's obsession with the sky. She had always been so busy before, that she didn't realize how calming and beautiful the sky could be. "Oh, Ashura, hey." Sasuke muttered bitterly and this broke Sakura from her thoughts. "What did I do?" She snapped and Sakura watched her carefully. "Nothing, but lie to us." He said and she narrowed her silver eyes at him. "About what, exactly?" She asked and he sighed and shook his head.

"Why didn't you tell us that the queen had sent you to get an eye of the gate lord?" Sakura asked and Ashura snorted. "Because when we went, Lion broke the eye; got us banned from the reef, and now the awoken hate us. So you tell me why I didn't say anything about it. The stranger said that only you three would be able to retrieve a gate lord eye without destroying it. So I never lied, I just didn't mention our little issue in the reef." Ashura said and Hinata frowned.

"Krux says hello, Ashura." Hinata said suddenly, slicing through that building tension faster than it could form. "Really?" Ashura asked and Hinata nodded. "Good, she's alright then…" Ashura sighed in relief and Hinata furrowed her brow at her. "Why wouldn't she be?" Hinata asked and Ashura frowned. "Sir princely was treating her none too nicely and I was going to have none of it." Ashura said and Hinata watched her carefully. "Thank you for standing up for krux." Hinata said and Ashura shook her head. "Don't thank me…" she said and Hinata frowned, she hadn't said it rudely; but it had seemed that way. "She's bitter because her boyfriend hates her." A familiar voice said and the icy look that flashed through her eyes shot right to the person behind her. "Lion…" she hissed and he smirked. "What?" He asked and she shook her head. "Nothing… absolutely nothing at all. I don't have time for you because I'm waiting on someone." She said and he shrugged, but walked off.

"Who are you waiting for?" Sakura asked and Ashura scratched her head lightly. "Uh… the woman who saved me when I first became a guardian…" she said and her eyes flicked over to the odd looking ship in the distance. "I see… is she the one who helped you get the leg?" Sakura asked and Ashura watched her for a moment. "Yes. I was bleeding out on the ground, screaming at the top of my lungs in the middle of nowhere, unable to move due to the pain and all alone." Ashura began with a snarl, but then sighed and continued, "She built me the leg on the spot and brought me here. That was two years ago, a little more a little less." She said and walked away.

:-:-:-:-:-:

"Gaara would love it here…" Sakura said with an amused look. Sasuke didn't have any amusement cross his features but Hinata allowed a small smile. "that's what I told the speaker…" she said and Sakura looked over at her with a small look of guilt, what Sasuke had said made her feel bad about what she had done… but it seemed that she wasn't going to change her mind still. Hinata summoned her sparrow and followed Danny's lead.

"You should tell her." Sasuke said before taking off to follow the others once more. Sakura sighed and summoned her sparrow as well, but she didn't feel the need to catch up to them just yet, she had an odd feeling in her gut. She looked around and spotted exactly what was making her stomach feel odd, there was something hanging off of a pole near one of the cabal base camps. It looked ragged and worn down, but she could still tell it was once a human… "Hey guys, wait a minute." She called out as she sped towards the flag staff that held the person on it.

Sasuke and Hinata turned their sparrows around and hovered to a stop near the top of the hill. "Hinata what is that?" Danny asked and she shook her head. "Let me get a good look." She said and the veins around her eyes pulsed and she glanced towards the flagpole. "He's gone, completely. His ghost is impaled upon the end of the staff with him…" she said and her eyes softened in sadness for this lost comrade of the tower. "He seems to still be holding tightly onto some sort of rolled up paper…" she said and Sakura nodded. "I will go get the paper, you watch my back." She said and Hinata nodded.

Sakura took off down the sandy dunes and knocked away each of the offending cabal in her path. "She's a barrier titan with the strength of a striker, that's kind of cool." Danny said and Hinata looked at him. "So she can put up barriers?" Hinata began, but a smile crossed her lips. "Well, it only fits because she needs something to protect her while she heals people." Hinata said and Danny nodded. "Barrier titans such as me are great to have around, you may not be able to shoot from within the barrier, but neither can they." He said and Sasuke nodded. "That makes sense as well."

"Loki and I go around and troll the fallen sometimes. He lets them kill him, then I put a barrier around him and the fallen, and he self-revives and decimates them when they think they are safe." Danny chuckled and Sasuke raised a brow. "Oh uh… don't tell Ashura that… she would knock me into next week." Danny laughed nervously then whispered something under his breath.

"What's a crota?" Sasuke asked and Hinata looked over at Danny with a scolding look. "Ashura is not crota!" She scolded and Danny started laughing. "She's just as scary as the tales of him are, though!" Danny laughed and Hinata pouted. Sasuke didn't seem all too enthused with their little spat so he shrugged and watched as Sakura was running back up to them with the thing in hand.

"So, Sakura when you get back… tell Cayde-6-6 to call upon crota." Danny said and Sakura looked at him strangely but shrugged and said she would when they got back to the tower. "Ok so this thing is a map… and I believe I know what of…" Sakura said as she pointed at the moon and the small illustration that resembled the temple of crota. "I think this is where I was found…" she said and pointed at the illustration. "And wasn't this where you found Sasuke, Hinata?" She asked pointing to the darkness zone between Russia and widow's court. Hinata nodded and eyed the drawings that littered the page. "They are mainly on earth, but I think he was searching for more when he had come here." Sakura said and Hinata tapped her finger on the map. "That's dock-13…" she said and then her fingers trailed up the map and over to the area where three dots lingered close together. "That is another forbidden zone…" she said and Danny looked at her with a frown. "That's old japan… that's edo…" he said and she nodded. "That's home…" Sakura whispered and ran her fingers over the image.

"So now we know where we need to go then…" Sasuke said and Hinata nodded. "Hey guys, I don't mean to crush your dreams of returning to japan and all… but if we don't get through this right here… you will never see it…" Danny said and pointed at the now glowing portal in the distance. Hinata turned around and nodded. "We should hurry then, Naruto, Shikamaru, Gaara and Ino are all depending on us!" She said in a soft, yet determined voice. Sakura and Sasuke nodded and exchanged looks before they took off towards that portal.

Danny jumped and dropped a fist of havoc on the vex that appeared from the portal, while Sasuke and Hinata worked on taking out the surviving few. "Alright, so…" Danny began and they looked at him cautiously. "I want each of you to run straight through; do not stop for anything, nothing at all. Not even me calling for help." He said and Hinata watched him carefully. "If I call for help, it is not from you three. So whatever you do, don't turn around. Loki and Ashura will come running if I need help, trust me." He said and Hinata opened her mouth to speak once more. "If I do die, my ghost will send out a signal to Ashura and she will follow the telepathic message right to me. She will revive me and then we will continue to clear this place of the vex." He said and Hinata nodded slowly.

"You three focus on the dark heart your ghost is telling you about. Avoid the divisive mind, because Ashura, Loki, and I will handle that one. Now go, I'm going to send them a message to be prepared for a jump." Danny said and Sasuke nodded. "You're not so bad kid." He said before he took off down the moss covered pathway. Danny offered a friendly salute then watched them vanish down the pathway. "Alrighty then… let's get this going then…" he said with a sigh.

"Man I really hate the vex…" he complained as they began to appear once the group had run ahead.

:-:-:-:-:-:

Hinata froze as she stumbled through the doorways of the large room. "What is that?" She asked but neither Sasuke nor Sakura could tell her. "That is the dark heart." Sasuke's ghost, now dubbed yami (literally meaning darkness or dark), said. "So, are you three prepared to kill a god?" The emerald colored ghost asked. "I don't think we have much of a choice now do we?" Sakura asked and Hinata shook her head. "Alright… well just be careful…" KO said and the three nodded as the group of vex goblins turned and looked up at them.

"I can't say I'm sorry for the intrusion…" Sakura said as she and Sasuke lunged forwards to begin taking out the goblins. Hinata's body refused to move, and she knew she was once more getting all choked up with fear. She knew she shouldn't be doing this again, she knew she should be down there helping them, but she just couldn't find it in herself to move. "Hinata… just go on, they need you…" a voice whispered in the back of her mind and she teared up. "I can't…." She whispered, but a solid repetitive nudge to the center of her back made her look behind her. KO was ramming himself against the center of her back to try and get her to move. "Go on, you can do this…" he said as he rammed her back. "You took down a blade with your bare hands! I know you can do this!" He said and she watched him ram her back a few more times. She then nodded and jumped down to join her comrades in the fight against the goblins, but something felt wrong and before she could even hit the ground, an agonized scream ripped from her throat and she was sent flying across the way.

Sasuke threw down the vex he was currently impaling on his blade and ran over to her, but a shockwave sent him flying backwards. "Sakura!" He yelled and she dropped the vex she had just smashed the head of. "Hm?" She asked but her question was just as swiftly answered when she saw the large vex about the size of the gate lord they had taken down not too long ago. "Sasuke, bring her here." Sakura ordered and clapped her hands together then sent them out straight to her sides, a large purple bubble, for lack of better wording, surrounded her.

Sasuke vanished from sight, ran to grab Hinata, and made his way to the bubble with her in his grasp. "Are you alright? He asked her and she nodded as he sat her up. "Good grief…" she grumbled as she rubbed her head. "Hinata… are you alright?" Ko asked and she nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, thank you." She said and her ghost exhaled a sigh of relief, which made Sasuke raise a brow as he looked at the lung-less creature. "I know, it's strange isn't it?" Ko asked and Sasuke nodded slightly. "I didn't know robots could breathe." Sasuke said and the ghost chuckled. "We can drown too, so keep us away from water." Ko said before turning to see that Sakura was ripping the large vex to pieces one limb at a time.

"This is the strangest group of guardians I've ever witnessed…" yami said and ko nodded in agreement. "But, we are strong, aren't we?" Hinata asked and both yami and ko looked over at her. "Yeah… the strongest I've ever seen." Ko said and yami continued to watch her for a moment. "You seem to be the most accustomed with their abilities so far, so I would have to say you are possibly the strongest at this time." Yami said and Hinata shook her head and blushed. "Sasuke and Sakura are…" she said and yami scoffed audibly.

"So modest, but odd none the less…. Maybe I've gotten this out wrong. You're the strongest warlock I've seen. Does that make it better?" Yami asked as Sasuke chuckled. "Kiss ass." Sasuke said and his ghost gave him an unamused look. "You may have strange abilities, but Cayde-6-6 is still stronger than you." Yami spat and Sasuke raised a bro w at his ghost. Sasuke was opening his mouth to say something to yami when the heads of each of the large vex fell in perfect synchronization at the edge of the bubble.

"I could have used some help you know." Sakura snarled and Sasuke smirked. "You handled it well enough." He said and she mock laughed at him and rolled her eyes. "Very funny, that last one tried to throw me off into whoever knows where." She snapped and Hinata fiddled with her fingers. "I'm sorry Sakura… I didn't help at all… I froze up in fear…" Hinata said and Sakura frowned then crouched in front of her friend. "Don't worry, it will be ok, it wasn't you I was talking to either way." Sakura said with a smile.

"But I didn't help…" she whispered and Sakura grasped her shoulders firmly. "Look here, I didn't help when that large knight had put me in that sphere. You, Sasuke, and Ashura saved me while I could do nothing. Trust me; keeping you safe would be much better than me knowingly putting you in danger." Sakura said and Hinata nodded softly. "Besides, I could handle it." Sakura said with a grin, which made Hinata smile lightly.

"I guess so…" she said as Sakura helped her up.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:

When they returned to the tower the speaker was there to greet them. "What has happened?" He asked and they all blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?" Hinata asked and he looked from them to the other group that was standing across from them. "Loki, Danny, and Ashura just returned not too long ago… but not even thirty minutes after they came back and told me you were fighting somewhere deep in the black garden, did the traveler begin to perk up…" the speaker said and they looked across the way to see that the debris that had once been falling from the bottom of the traveler was making its way right back up to attempt to rebuild the traveler.

"Holy cow… we actually helped do something important…" Sakura said in disbelief and Hinata giggled lightly as she looked at Sasuke who was watching the ghosts fly around overly excited. "We destroyed the dark heart residing within the black garden…" Sasuke muttered and the speaker turned towards him swiftly. "You don't say…" he whispered and then Sasuke looked over to Danny, Ashura, and Loki. "We may have defeated the dark heart… but we wouldn't have been able to had Loki, Ashura, and Danny not told us to run straight through while they cleared out all of the vex within." Sasuke said as he looked at Sakura. "It was a conjoined effort…" she said with a smile.

There was a crash and everyone turned to look swiftly over to the docking bay. The strange ship had landed, but not completely in one piece. Before anyone could actually make a move to go see what had happed with the ship, Ashura was set in a dead run towards the docking bay. Sakura, Sasuke, Hinata, and Loki took off running after her, only to see her jump up onto the box Holliday usually sat on and over the black railing guards. She ran straight down to the docking area where the exos flagged down the ships. She ripped the door off the flaming ship that had crashed there. She forced her way into the ship and pulled someone out of it. Sakura helped her pull said person out of the ship, but there was an odd appearance to her face. Her eyes were covered, but a strange glowing black liquid seemed to fall from her eyes, but wasn't actually there. It was beneath the skin itself.

"Eris! Are you alright?" Ashura asked and the strange woman looked up at her. "I couldn't find him… we've lost him…" she whispered as they pulled her to her feet. "Who, who did we lose. Eris?" Ashura asked and Eris frowned at her. "Them all… six out of the eight of us went down there, and as far as I can tell… only you and I are still alive." Eris said and Ashura's fingers trembled. "But we had just… seen Sephora…" Ashura said and Eris looked at her oddly. "You must have seen her before the hive hit… that was me calling her to help. She had vanished before crota's rage could consume us, so there may be a chance she is alive." Eris said and Ashura frowned deeply.

"I hope she's ok…" Ashura said as she rubbed her fingers on the edge of the cloak around her shoulders. "What an odd day this is… the traveler is healing… and the bane of crota has come to visit…" the speaker said and Eris bowed to him. "Mr. Speaker… sorry to impose upon you at this moment… I don't think the awoken would have spared me long enough to hear my pleas…" she said and the speaker extended his hand to her. "Nice of you to finally join us, Eris. I trust you've been keeping an eye on you pupil?" He asked and Eris glanced over at Ashura. "Very much so… am I to suppose that the three behind her are part of the lucky seven?" Eris asked and the speaker nodded.

Sakura, Hinata, and Sasuke had kept silent, just listening to the conversation that was happening before them. Eris turned to them and eyed them carefully. "Interesting…" she muttered as she looked them over. All three of them had their hair pulled back into ponytails, though Sasuke and Sakura's were much shorter than Hinata's. Dirt and oil coated their features, signaling their battle with the vex. "The existence of these three means that the existence of the others is real as well, does it not? This also means that the existence of Atheon is a threat as well." Eris said and the speaker looked to her once more.

"Three of the seven shall rise, and with them… Atheon will rise and the vault of glass will shatter, the essence of time becoming malleable within his hands." Eris said and eyed the three. "They will not yet be ready to fight crota, they must destroy Atheon first." She said and Ashura looked down and away from Eris. "I only hope they fare better than we did…" Ashura said and Eris' head snapped towards her. "You fought Atheon?" She asked and Ashura nodded. "We did, and we failed. The oracles and the Templar were difficult to overcome, but… Atheon himself can bend the very fabric of time. I hope you three are ready for this… because I am not going back in there." Ashura said and Hinata looked at her with sorrowful eyes.

"I will give the coordinates, but you will not return me to the vault."

:-:-:-:

'You are definitely going to need the rest of your team; you can't succeed with only three. Take the map and find the others. All of them. You're going to need as much help as you can get, but you will not get it from me.' Hinata couldn't figure out for the life of her why Ashura had been so adamant about her refusal to return there to the vault of glass. Hinata had actually been in the general area of the vault of glass, but she had never dwelled within its depths like Ashura had two years before.

"They managed to keep Atheon from completely opening the vault and cracking the time space continuum." Sakura said as she could pretty much guess Hinata's thoughts from the look on her face alone. "Good thing they didn't let the gorgons free, that would have been a major issue for the other guardians." Hinata said and Sasuke nodded. "Why do you think Ashura is so angry all the time?" Hinata asked suddenly as they were packing their ships for an expedition to earth once more.

"Who knows, she could just have that type of personality… y'know?" Sakura asked and Hinata frowned. "I don't think so… she seems nice at times… and fun at others… like when she's around Cayde-6-6…" Hinata said and they looked over at her. "And then at other times she has that insufferable attitude." Sasuke said and Hinata frowned. "You know, you guys really seem to want to know more about her, than you do your friends…" a familiar voice called out from the edge of the loading bay. "I was just curious is all…" Hinata said and said person smirked. "Curiosity killed the cat." He said and Sasuke gave him a look.

"But satisfaction brought it back." The guy said as he stretched. "Basically… it's been hell for us guardians without super special abilities… more so for her, since she does have said abilities." He said and they furrowed their brows at him in confusion. "Let's just say… she showed up, soaked in her own blood, with a mechanical leg, and dual abilities. She's what they call…. A strange one. Usually the strange ones… well… either implodes from using arc blade, and then a nova bomb… or fry themselves by using both solar and arc abilities." He said and they blinked in confusion.

"She's been treated like an outcast for the longest time because she's a ticking time bomb and no one wants to be near her when she either fries herself, or implodes." He said and Hinata frowned. "But how do you know those things will happen?" She asked and he sighed. "Listen, I may not have been the best of anything to her. But what I do know, is that she is dying, and when that time comes.' he drifted off slowly. "There will be a mess." He gave them one stern look and shook his head. "A word of advice for you, ghost eyes…." He called out and Hinata looked up at him.

"Do not let your ghost get injured in any sort of way; you should probably keep him out of sight for as long as possible." He said as he made his way back to the other sectors of the tower. "He sounds familiar…" Sakura muttered and then her eyes widened. "He's from her fire team. He used Ashura as a meat shield, as she said once." Sakura growled and turned in the direction he had vanished in but he was gone and Sasuke wasn't going to let her get distracted.

"He was talking in past tense." Sasuke said and the two women looked over at him. "What?" Sakura asked and he sighed. "He said 'he had never been' meaning past tense." He said and Hinata's eyes went wide. "He's dead…" she whispered and he nodded. "So pleasantly saying… there's no reason to run after him if he's already dead now is there?" He asked as he tossed his last bag into the ship. "Not really…" Sakura sighed and made her way inside her ship. "I will see you two at dock-13." She said as she slipped into her ship and vanished from sight completely.

Sasuke looked over to see Hinata was doing the same. "Be careful." He said to her softly and she offered a small smile as she too, slipped within her ship and took off. He sighed and walked into his ship, glancing only once back at the shining surface of Hinata's navy colored ship as it vanished from sight. He glanced over to the furthest railing from them and saw that both Eris and Ashura were sitting near where Eris would soon be docking her somewhat repaired ship so she could give bounties and rewards to guardians. He could tell they were talking by the fact that Eris was facing Ashura while gesturing at things with her gloved hands, Ashura wasn't facing her however… she held a glowing green object within her grasp and was staring deep within the object.

"You know you shouldn't stare… people might think you actually like her…" an amused voice called out from behind him. It was Ashura's older brother, Loki. "She has an insufferable attitude, just like Sakura, I have my own overly dramatic brat. You can keep yours." Sasuke snorted and Loki rolled his eyes. "I plan to." He said then furrowed his brows at Eris. "Although… that one doesn't seem to want to let her go." He growled and Sasuke glanced from Loki to Eris. "She's stubborn and thinks she doesn't need to medically take care of herself, Eris just made the issue worse. But… Lion, Danny, and I are going on a trip for supplies and won't be back for a while. Maybe I will stay on earth… who knows. But I'm sick of this tower." Loki sighed as he scratched his head.

"Just know… if you don't settle this planetary issue, I will personally kill you. I would love to one day rest in peace. None of us ever asked for this… we didn't want to be guardians… but you… you can do it with no issue. I trust you will exalt the darkness and free us." Loki said as he popped his neck while walking away. "Well. I guess I better get going. Don't want to disappoint his highness." Sasuke snorted as he slipped into his ship and sat in the seat up near the front, setting free his ghost to do as it pleased to get him to dock-13.

:-:-:-:-:-:

Hinata was crouched around the corner of the room, having seen movement from within. She peered back around the corner, seeing a queen breaker captain within the room. She gasped and ducked back around the corner, her hands tightly held onto her mouth to keep in her trembling whimpers. She had not only seen the captain, but the crystal with a skeleton inside. She heard movement nearby and was praying for everyone to swiftly show up. She knew they wouldn't, though.

Something sharp prodded her in the back and her breath hitched as she slowly looked up at the queen breaker that had prodded her with the blade. It then turned and pointed to the crystal, then back at her. She stood and looked at the queen breaker. "Do you want me to free them?" She asked and the fallen said something unintelligible and swung it's blade at the crystal, only for the blade to shatter. The queen breaker stared at it in confusion before rearing back with the other blade to swipe at the crystal once more. She ran over and grabbed the blade before he could hit the crystal and repeat the shattering of his blade. "Don't worry, I will free them." She said and moved to free her ghost, but the queen breaker slashed at her ghost, causing her to pull it away.

"My ghost has to help me free them, please don't hurt ko." She explained and the captain grumbled something incoherently that sounded somewhat begrudging. "It may take a minute by myself, but if you could find the other ghost attached to this guardian, I can make this go a bit faster…" ko said and Hinata nodded. "Have you seen another one of the ghosts around here?" Hinata asked and the fallen shook its head and muttered something in fallen language.

"I will take that as a no…" she sighed and looked up to the hole in the ceiling, hoping for Sasuke and Sakura to finally show up, but there were no signs of them what so ever. She sighed and began looking around, the captain doing the same as she was. They finally found the ghost buried beneath the bottom of the crystal, and with so much dirt caked into it the ghost wouldn't power on. She carefully began removing as much dirt from it as she could, revealing a red shell with a series of sea foam green designs on the shell. A glint flashed through her eyes and she grinned as she heard footsteps coming her way. The captain was crouched down right beside her, picking at the dirt within the ghost.

Sasuke and Sakura skidded into the room panting heavily. "Which way did you go to come through here?" She asked as she set her hand on the fallen's shoulder to calm him and keep him from attacking the other two. "We both landed in the divide…" Sakura sighed as her green ghost hovered beside her, yami doing the same with Sasuke.

Hinata smiled at them and pointed to the crystal. "He dug them up… I think we found Gaara." She said and Sakura grinned widely. Sasuke offered a nod. Their ghosts flew over and helped hers remove the crystal from around the deceased guardian. The bones collapsed to the floor and Hinata frowned as she worked on reviving the dirty ghost.

Its light flickered then it began to hover but it was slightly off kilter. "Little red… are you alright?" She asked and he hovered for a minute, trying to focus on her before it did a sort of blinking movement, then burst open, all dirt falling from its crevices soon after. Hinata held out her hand and shoved one of the pieces back inwards towards the blue center, causing a burst of energy which began forming Gaara.

He groaned in annoyance as his eyes opened and he looked over the group. "Ugh… what on earth?" He asked as his eyes scanned the group before him, and then landed on Hinata. "Hinata?" He asked and she smiled at him brightly. "Hey, long time no see, kazekage." Sakura chirped and he offered a small smile. "Where are we? What is this place?" He asked and they all exchanged looks. "It's a very long story."

"We can explain it when we get to the tower." Hinata said and Gaara gave her an odd look. "He's a warlock, Hinata. You will have to show him his powers." Sakura said and Hinata nodded. Hinata offered Gaara a hand which he then took appreciatively. "So umm… Hinata not to raise any alarms… but that captain right there… what do you plan on doing with him? We can't take him to the reef; we have too much to do…" Sakura said and the captain brandished his blade at the pinkette.

"He doesn't seem all that friendly both…" she sighed and Hinata smiled. "Ashura. I will take him to Ashura." She said and the captain pointed at Hinata with his remaining blade and muttered something in the fallen language "we have no choice, like krux he could be an ally." She said and the captain began stamping his feet and doing the little cheer they usually do when they take down a guardian.

"K… krux." He managed and Hinata smiled at him. "I see you really want to see her huh?" She asked and the captain stomped his foot. They all boarded their ships, Gaara in the ship with Sasuke, while Hinata and the captain were in the same one. They all arrived at the tower not too long after they had left; Cayde-6-6 was there to greet Sasuke with open arms, literally. Sasuke had trouble escaping from the exo's grasp, which was looking him over for any injuries or holes in his cloak.

He patted Sasuke on his back and sent him on his way. "Um, Cayde-6." Sakura called out and the Exo spun on his heel to face her. "Yes, missy?" He asked and she smiled at him. "I was told to ask you to call for crota." She said and he began laughing hysterically. "That's really what they are calling her now?!" He asked, his laughter seemingly not going to cease. "Did Danny tell you that?" He asked and Sakura blushed lightly. "Yes…" she answered and he laughed even harder, gripping his abdomen now. This was strange, seeing the Exo act like such a human, instead of the robotic creature he was.

"Oh… that's a riot." He said, patting his leg to slow his laughter. "That is the best one I've heard yet." He sighed then reached into his pocket for a small device that looked similar to a touch screen phone, but not even a centimeter thick, and it was see through. There was a small circular button that appeared on the screen and he pressed it, causing it to turn red. Her face appeared on the tiny screen and he grinned.

"Hey crota, you've been summoned." He said nonchalantly and she growled and clicked off the screen. They could hear her heavy footsteps all through the tower's docking area. "Good morning sunshine, how are you today?" Cayde-6 asked and she glared at him. "Go hump a screw." She snarled and stretched. She's been in the barracks all day. "So what do you guys need?" She asked as she tapped her foot, her hands on her hips.

"Well, sunshine… that's an awful lot of skin and metal you're showing today." Cayde-6-6 commented noticing she was wearing a tiny pair of skin tight shorts, and a shirt so loose and short it was about the size of a bra but loose fitted and drafty. She glared at him, a frown crossing her lips. "Yeah, well, I was sleeping." She sighed and he chuckled, muttering something under his breath.

"With who? Honestly, Cayde-6… I'm going to put my foot so far up your ass you will become a boot." She snarled and Sakura raised a brow. Cayde-6-6 blinked and began turning around in a circle. "What? I have an actual ass now? Not just a solid plate of metal?" He asked incredulously, chasing himself in circles trying to touch the legendary that was attached to him. Ashura sighed, a slightly humored laugh escaping her lips. "You didn't know?" She asked and he looked at her.

"You're all ass." She said and he chuckled. "Yes, to you I suppose." He said and she smirked at him. "To everyone else you're a clucky mother hen." She said and he chuckled. "That too." "So, what did you guys need?" She asked with her arms crossed and a glare directed at Cayde-6. "If you touch me, I will compact you into a new creation, not a guardian." She snapped and he laughed.

"Guardian's vows, kid, you can't revoke that." He said and she smirked. "I won't revoke it; I will just make it to where you will be a means to an end for taniks." She said threateningly and he shrugged. "Even if you made me into a weapon it would still be me killing him." He said and she smirked darkly. "Not if you're a boot." She said then turned to fully face the four in front of her.

"Welcome to the tower." She said and offered Gaara a hand, which he shook. "Thank you." He replied and looked her over. "That scar on your back… it matches up with the one on your chest… doesn't it?" He asked and she froze in place, her sudden insecurities taking over. Her hands trembled then she placed her hand over the scar on her chest. "W…what did you all need?" She asked her voice meaner now.

"We brought someone here for you, we don't have a name for him yet, but I think krux will give him a nice one and teach him how to speak fluently, don't you think?" Hinata asked a smile on her lips as the captain hopped out of the ship. She nodded and held out a hand to the fallen, which walked over to her and offered a bow. He began speaking in fallen and she nodded, returning his conversation in the same language he spoke, catching everyone off guard.

Cayde-6 was staring at her with pride, this pride filled his entire being and you could see it in his stance. "She spent the two years after she had arrived, training herself to speak in their native tongue. She's the only other translator out there, other than variks at the reef." Cayde-6-6 said and Hinata nodded. Ashura and the captain walked away, stopping by the shipwright.

"Don't ask about the scar." He said and they stared at him in confusion. "She's got bad memories of it. She descended into the vault of glass to kill Atheon, and failed. They went down with six people and returned with four, they had almost returned without her." He said and Gaara apologized.

"don't be sorry about this… you couldn't have known, she never tells anyone but me about this type of stuff, so you never would have known." He sighed and they all nodded, they were all interested in what he had to say. "That guy that you all keep seeing around here, that was Floyd. Floyd more often than not hid behind Ashura because she's got a blatant disregard for her own life. The one time he jumped out in front of her to protect her, for the first time he protected anyone in his life… he was pierced through the chest from a hobgoblin sniper." He said and they frowned.

"The other one was a younger girl was killed by the Templar." He said and they frowned even deeper. "Ashura knew the danger they were all going to be in but they went anyways. If I had gone, we may have had a better outcome, she doesn't think that I should leave the tower, so when she gave me her guardian vow, I accepted, at a cost. I go as well." He said and they nodded, understanding the situation fully.

"How did she get the scar?" Gaara asked softly and Cayde-6 frowned. "Her brother called out to her to warn her of the exploding harpy behind her. It exploded, sending her flying. We call the vault of glass that because you see fragments of glass slowly falling all over the area, so no matter if you're running or fighting, you're not going to come out unscathed, unless you happen to be an Exo, then you will leave with glass in unmentionable places all over." He joked but a sigh escaped his lips. "She was impaled on a particularly large shard of glass." He said, and was about to go into further detail, but the sound of someone heaving attracted his attention.

"Leave me be!" Ashura snarled, seeing them all surround her. Inky black liquid dripping down her chin, the same liquid splattered all over the floor. "Ashura…" Sakura began but Ashura glared at her. "You can't help me anymore… you should just do as I say and go to the speaker. I will be alright when I can see him and get him to help me now that I need it." She said and Cayde-6 sighed. "You and that boy have such an awful relationship, I would much rather you ask me for help." He sighed and she frowned at him.

"I would if you could." She said, and then waved the four of them off. They actually listened this time, leaving the captain and Cayde-6-6 to help Ashura... When they reached the speaker he greeted them and congratulated them on their accomplishments. "What do you plan on doing first, after you have collected a few more of your team?" He asked and Hinata stepped in front of the group.

"We wish to enter the vault of glass and defeat Atheon." She said and Gaara stared at her wide eyed. Eren and Kris held a similar look of shock on their features. "Take Ashura and her ghost kabr with you." Eren said and Hinata blinked at him. "w-what?"

"Ask Ashura to go with us? Why?" Sakura asked and the speaker shook his head. "I don't believe that would be the best of ideas…" he said but Eren shook his head. "She will go! She can tell you how to get through the majority of it without an issue." He said and Sakura shook her head. "We can't ask her to go back into the vault… she's traumatized because of what happened last time." She said and Eren nodded rapidly.

'That's exactly why she will go… she doesn't want anyone else to fall in there because she could help them in some way." Eren said and an unamused snort was heard. "You think you're so smart don't you?" She snarled.

"I'm not going to watch them die. I'm not going to fail another group, so keep me and my past out of your mouth, they can handle this alone. They're definitely strong enough… can't you see I'm suffering? I spend my days in the barracks now… I haven't gone anywhere since they destroyed the dark heart a week ago. I'm falling ill and no medicine can help me… if you honestly need help…" she said, then took a deep breath.

"Go find someone else."


	5. The Vault of Glass

The vault.

In their down time, the four of them spent their time researching the vault, using the knowledge of their ghosts, and from what cayde-6 had told them of Ashura's attempt. Gaara watched the other three in confusion; they were asking their ghosts about things that they most likely had no information on. "Eriana… what can you tell me about the hive?" Gaara asked and the other three stared at him in a similar confusion.

"That… I can tell you all about. The vex, however… You would have to see out the ghosts named Pahanin and Kabr. They delved into the depths of the vault, while I delved into the depths of the hellmouth, and perished." She said, hovering above Gaara's shoulder. "However, there are a few who can divulge the information you need to remove Atheon's filth from Venus." She said, causing Sakura, Sasuke, and Hinata to look at her.

"Something tells me that you all were meant to delve into crota's hideout and banish him…" Eriana said and they all blinked in confusion. "Why is that?" Sasuke asked and Hinata stared at her ghost with a small smile. "This is true, isn't it Toland?" Hinata asked and the ghost hovered before her in silence. "This does not mean you cannot still call me Ko, it was endearing to hear another name despite my own. My name was never spoken with such admiration… they thought I had gone mad." He said and Hinata smiled.

"I will call you whatever you wish for me to call you, as long as you continue helping me as you do." She said and he hovered next to eriana. "Yami, is actually the previous leader of the hunter vanguard, Andal Brask, Which is probably why you were chosen as his guardian, Sasuke." Toland said. "There are reasons we were bonded to you all, and I think Wei Ning has it figured out as well." Eriana said and Sakura's ghost hovered beside her.

"Until the time comes… we cannot release the information regarding Crota. You are not yet ready to face that darkness. What we can tell you is that you need to speak with Cayde-6, Loki, Lion, and Danny." Wei said, before all of the ghosts dematerialized into the gauntlets of their guardians, except for Andal. "A word of advice though…. Don't consult Ashura about this. And… if you find it important that you do… do it with Cayde-6 present." Andal said and Hinata frowned.

"Why with Cayde-6" Sakura asked and Hinata offered a sad smile, before speaking what Andal was already going to say. "He has her guardian's vow. That's a bond that no one can break, not even death. It's a promise between mentor and student where no matter what happens; they always have each other's back." Hinata explained and the dark ghost gave a nod of approval. "Very good… I didn't know they were still allowing such vows, but even if they tried to ban them they wouldn't get anywhere." Andal said and released a sigh.

"Not only the vows though… if you talk to her without him, she'll get angry and volatile. If he is there, you will most likely be able to get something out of her." Andal explained and Sasuke furrowed his brow. "What's the difference between him being there or not?" Sasuke asked and Andal focused his gaze on him. "He can comfort her after she explains what happened in there." Andal said and the group furrowed their brows in unison it seemed.

"Why would she need comforting?" Sakura asked, the thought seeming absurd, seeing as Ashura seemed to be one of the most emotionally strong people they had met in the tower. "She lost two teammates down there, from what I heard. One was a close friend, Floyd. The other was her twin sister Kira. How the two of them came to pass, that I do not know. And that is why you must find out. None of you need to die down there." Andal said and they nodded, now understanding why Ashura was the way she was.

They made their way to cayde-6, who greeted them with open arms and an energetic aura. "Hello again, new guy! It's a shame you're not one of mine, but… hey… I can manage. So… how's it going?" he asked and Sakura smiled at him. "Pretty well, we were just looking for some information about Pahanin and Kabr, along with some on the vault of glass." She said and he tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms over his chest. "Who said to come to me?" he asked his tone quite a bit more serious now.

"Our ghosts thought you may be able to help us find Loki, Lion, Danny, and Ashura…" She said and a sigh escaped Cayde-6. "Why does everyone always go straight to Ashura… do they want to remind her of what happened? I've tried so hard to get her to realize that survival is not guaranteed as a guardian… I'm always doing things to try and keep her from falling back into that abyss… and then once I get her out of it someone else comes back to remind her of what happened." He sighed and Sakura frowned.

"What are you trying to figure out?" He asked and they blinked. "I can tell you almost as much as she can, right now… I'm protecting my student." he said and Sakura nodded. Sasuke eyed the ghost that was hovering over his shoulder; he could feel the resonating pride the small bot was giving off. "What happened down there?" Sakura asked and he uncrossed his arms.

"Down there, pretty much the only thing you will find, are Vex, more than you can count. There are puzzles where the floor will vanish from beneath your feet because time isn't real. Time means nothing down there. If you fall… you're lost forever, because nothing will ever find you down there. If you die down there, your body will never decay…" He said and the horrified look that crossed Hinata's face made him sigh.

"Loki and Lion can tell you how to get through, but they have been patrolling in the cosmodrome for the past week gathering supplies… And Ashura and I can tell you of the pain and suffering it will cause if you fail. Two years she has suffered the deaths of both her friend and her twin… but she will fight in their memory. The memory of what they were before the vault, not what they were within." Cayde said as he sat upon the table in the vanguard room. "There are multiple creatures dwelling within the vault, the dangerous two are the Templar, and Atheon himself. Ashura knows how to kill them both, but if you ask her anything, it better only be about how to kill them. However, before you try to figure out Ashura… you have to figure out her sister. So you better have a chat with Zavala over there… He can tell you all about Kira." Cayde-6 said and they nodded.

They looked over to the large titan hunched over the table looking at a series of reports. "I don't have all day, you know. You can come speak with me now or wait until later." Zavala said, his voice neither irritated nor impatient, he just seemed curious to see what all they would ask about her. They all sat on the small set of steps behind him, not wanting to get within his bubble of personal space. "Alright, so first off… what do you want to know about her?" he asked as he turned around. "I want to know who she was as a person, and also why she was different as well." Sakura said and he nodded.

"Kira was exactly like Ashura, personality wise, when she was angry. Any other time that you would come across Kira, she stumbled over words, panicked when put on the spot, screamed like a little girl when something big lunged for her, but tried to be brave like her twin. She was always nice to everyone, it didn't matter who you were, but if you were nice to her she was nice to you." Zavala began, turning to face them fully. "She was loyal, and basically tried to make sure everyone was ok, even if you had been rude to her." he said and Sakura nodded.

"So she was a valuable teammate, despite her flaws?" Gaara asked and Zavala nodded. "She was… She had been revived under the eyes of the Awoken, which is where I had originally met her. She understood that she was meant to be in the tower, but her allegiances lay with the queen of the reef." He explained and Cayde-6 nodded. "Which is why no matter what situation had come up, she had always donned the armor of the royal guard, even if it was a tower related situation." Zavala explained and they all nodded, understanding what he was saying at that moment.

"She was the assistant of the prince of the reef. Her official title was wolves bane. He is the leader of crows, while she was wolves bane. It made sense, if you had been there during the war of the reef." he said and Hinata raised her hand to get his attention. "If I may ask a question…" she managed and he nodded. "Is Kira the reason that Ashura seeks the prince? The queen was telling us that he had been doing research on how to save a human from poisoning themselves with a mechanical appendage… Did Kira have a mechanical limb as well?" Hinata asked and he nodded. "Her leg was gone from the knee down. Not as much of her leg was gone as Ashura's but Kira had given Ashura so much hope that the prince would help her." he said and Hinata nodded.

"So that's why she's so adamant on going to the reef." Sasuke said and Zavala nodded. "She thinks he can help her. It's not completely a false hope… however; I think he is testing her before he lends what he has learned to her. He knows who she is, and he knows she's different from her sister, who he has yet to learn the whereabouts of, although it has been two years since her demise." Zavala said and Hinata blinked then looked at him in surprise. "Is that why he took an odd interest in me?!" she asked and Zavala offered a small nod.

"Possibly, you have a similar personality. She was more outgoing than you are though… perhaps he was curious about the power we all feel from you. It's much different than the power we feel from Ashura, because we know what she is… we have no idea what exactly you all are." he said and Cayde released a chuckle upon seeing confused looks cross their faces. "What is she then?" Sasuke asked and Cayde clapped his hands to gain their attention.

"Alrighty guys, a little riddle for you." he began and they stared at him oddly. "What type of guardian can use fist of havoc, but also become invisible and use arc blade?" he asked and they stared at him oddly no amusement in their eyes. "None." Sasuke sighed and Cayde made a sort of clicking noise in response. "You're so cold it's disheartening." he sighed then looked up at them. "She's what we call a strange one. Due to her leg being an Exo leg, we can't tell whether she was originally supposed to be a hunter, or a titan. She's a partial, created by Eris morn to help her and her second group destroy crota." Cayde-6 said and they stared at him oddly.

"Second group?" Gaara asked and Cayde nodded. "According to Ashura, Eris had created a second team to assist her in the defeat of crota, but she failed once more. It seems that no matter how many times she tries, Eris herself will be the only survivor. Her first group, consisting of Eris herself, Eriana-3, Vell, Toland, Wei ning, and Sai Mota, perished in the hell mouth." Cayde-6 said and the group all glanced at their ghosts. Chills ran through Hinata's bones and goosebumps covered her skin.

"That's what you meant by what you all said earlier… we were all chosen for a reason… we are meant to descend into crota's lair and destroy him… aren't we?" She asked a tremor to her voice. "That we cannot confirm. not at this moment. Right now we need you to keep focused on the objective at hand. Tell them how Floyd and Kira perished. They need to know. " Toland said and Cayde-6 nodded at the ghost.

"Floyd died from protecting Ashura when the oracles had come around. Kira was ripped into two pieces because of a portal. It shut early and half of her along with her ghost were teleported elsewhere." Zavala said and the fear hit Hinata once more. "We may die down there?" She asked and Zavala opened his mouth to speak, but Cayde cut him off. "Only if you aren't careful." he said and Zavala frowned.

"What you do need to do though… is bring Floyd home. Bring Kira home." Ikora said and Zavala turned to look at her with widened eyes. "You can't force them to do that!" he snapped and Ikora glared at him. "I can beg of them to do it! If it were you wouldn't you want your family to finally be able to lay you to rest?! Wouldn't you want them to know you were a hero and died to protect them!?" she snarled back and Cayde-6 got in between the two, noticing the looks on the faces of the four before them.

"You each lost someone down there… I understand your pain…" Cayde-6 said and the two vanguard leaders exchanged looks and nodded. "Forgive us… we want to lay our brethren to rest… but we don't like sending out our students to retrieve their bodies." Ikora said and Zavala nodded. Hinata's face was flushed, but not in embarrassment or fear, but instead with sadness. Her eyes were puffy, her cheeks reddened, and her lips trembled. Sakura had a similar disposition to her at that moment, while although they understood the pain as well; Sasuke and Gaara were trying not to show it.

"You said time doesn't exist down there… right?" Sakura asked and Cayde nodded. "That's why you want us to bring them home… they will look no different than the day they left, except for their wounds… you want their families to see their faces one last time…" Hinata managed, her voice trembling, she completely understood how it must have felt to have been lost in a place where no one could find you. "We will do everything in our power to bring them home so they can be laid to rest properly." Sasuke said and Hinata looked up at him with puffy red eyes, despite her not having been crying yet.

:-:

The news had travelled fast, and that was not what had unnerved her the most. What had unnerved her the most was not the fact that four people were headed right into the depths of her hell… It was not the fact that they were going down there to do what she couldn't. It was that they were going down there to get Floyd's and her sister's bodies.

Her ghost, Kabr, hovered before her. Staring her in the eyes, or so it felt like he was. "What are you going to do?" He asked and she continued to stare at her hands. "Are you going to face the demons of your past?" he asked, his philosophical tone was demeaning to her. She ignored the tone as he continued to speak of how it would do her some good to face her fears. "You talk about it like it was some misunderstanding down there." She snapped and he released a breathless sigh.

"Her ghost still lives. Vell Tarlowe still thrives down in the depths with her." Kabr said and she shot him a look. You just want me to complete the original crota fire team from five years ago." She said and the smirk in his mechanical voice was clear as day. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked and she sneered at her ghost. "Isn't what obvious?" she asked and he made a head shaking motion. "If vell talrowe still lives, he can possibly revive her… seeing as time doesn't exist in the vault." he said and she sighed. "That's false hope." she retorted.

"Time doesn't exist in the vault… but it does on Venus and Mars." she said, her voice stubborn. "You're just finding every reason not to go down there again, aren't you?" Kabr asked and she nodded. "Alright, well think of it this way Ashura. If you are not there to lead them, none will return. How would you feel if they all died down there? How would you feel if it had been you that could have saved them?" he asked and she shot him a glare. "How dare you try and guilt trip me like this." she snarled and he turned to her once more.

"I'm trying to get you to help them. I'm also trying to get you to help yourself." he said and she sighed. "I will face my demons when I am ready, but my demons are not within the vault, nor are they in crota's lair… My demons are within me…" She said and he listened to her.

"But I will enter my old hell and prevent it from creating a new one."

:-:

"I cannot fight well here." Gaara stated and they all nodded. "We know… you don't have your gourd, and there is no sand… we can't help that right now." Sakura yelled across the gap as she threw a praetorian off the edge of her conflux. "Gaara watch me." Hinata said and threw her flat palm out towards a praetorian, which made it slide backwards. He did the same to the praetorian and it caught flame and exploded.

"Weapons are better for us to use, but once we all learn what we can do with our abilities as a guardian, we can better accustom ourselves to using those abilities instead of wasting our energy and chakra on the ones we know we have." She said softly and he nodded. "This may be a bit more tiring than I thought it would be." Gaara said and she offered a small smile. "That's understandable…"

A flash of light to their left and three praetorians were sent flying in their direction, but they weren't going to get up any time soon. "Careful Sasuke! Don't hurt Gaara and Hinata!" Sakura yelled as she compacted yet another vex. Gaara began fiddling with his gauntlets to go through his inventory. "Here, use that one." Hinata offered, tapping on the icon of a scout rifle with a fully auto perk.

"Aim and shoot, don't put too much thought into it." Sakura yelled as she punched yet another one. It wasn't long before the conflux had fully formed and the enemies seemed to stop spawning. A laser shot from the conflux and opened the round gate behind Sasuke. "Well, at least we figured this thing out…" Sakura sighed and Sasuke nodded, seeing this was going to be a lot more trouble getting through than they needed.

They made their way down the path, the hollow echoes of their footsteps through the cavern reverberating back to them. They reached an area of the path where they could glance down and see three conflux, and a large span of area with towers coming up from the floor. They jumped onto the ledge across the way from them, but still above that other floor. Heavy uneven footsteps echoed behind them and caused the group to freeze.

Mechanical whirring was heard all around them, but no one could quite tell where exactly it was coming from. There was the sound of something being dropped in front of them, which caused them to look down to the conflux area, then something skidded behind them, which caused them to turn back around. "Is he still here?" She whispered through a pant. They glanced back around and spotted who she was asking about. "Yes… but-" Sasuke began and she whirled around, only to spot him up where the Templar was all those years ago, his head beside his feet.

The horrified look on her face told them that this had been done long after he had died. The dead fallen captain beside him told them something else as well… there may have been a chance that he had been revived, then killed once more by said blade wielding captain. "Ashura, I'm so sorry…" Sakura began, seeing the tears brimming in the albino woman's eyes. "Do not be sorry… it was not your fault… I don't know what happened here… but I know his ghost was destroyed down here." She managed as she jumped down to land on the edge of the lower platform.

"Now… follow my lead." She said and they all jumped down to join up with her. "You two protect the center at all costs." She said pointing to Sasuke and Hinata. "And you two take the left side. I can handle the right." She said to Sakura and Gaara. "Do not let anything sacrifice itself to the conflux, or it will kill us. If you see a glowing golden ball destroy it, they will kill us all." She said as she then turned to look up where Floyd's body lay. "I will return his body to normal, and then I will pull him within me." Kabr said and she nodded. "Do not pick up the relic, or attempt to attack the Templar when it appears." She said and they all nodded. "I will summon the vex." she said and made her way down the steps to the circle where light was escaping through the crevices. The light flashed up and created what looked like a pond of light, just as Ashura took off running towards the right side of the area.

"If you happen to get sprayed with the green liquid that escapes the glowing vex, run to that puddle down there. It will cleanse you. Once the relic appears down there I will grab it once you all have run up here." She said and they all made noises signifying that they understood. The vex began swarming out from all over not long after she scaled the top of the steps. She flipped a rifle from over her shoulder and began taking out the sniping hobgoblins as they appeared. It wasn't long before the conflux had all vanished. A series of high pitched 'bong' sounds echoed around them, causing them to glance around them curiously. "It's the oracles, do not get distracted. They will come around three times, then we will defend the conflux once more, and then the Templar will show himself." Ashura called out and they each nodded.

Sakura and Ashura were punching out the oracles left and right, while Sasuke, Gaara, and Hinata were protecting them from the Vex that had begun swarming about once more. Ashura shoved Sakura away from the fanatic that had run up behind her. Sakura nodded at her as they took out the last wave of the oracles that had appeared. "Alright…" Ashura began, but the blinding light of the relic caught her attention. "Get to the right side." She ordered and they obeyed without a second thought. She made her way to the center of the room and grabbed the relic once they were all up the stairs. The Templar appeared and she took off running as well.

"There will be more oracles, I want someone with an ice breaker to take them out." Ashura said and Hinata nodded, while Gaara, Sasuke, and Sakura awaited further instruction. Ashura turned to them and sighed. "I can't do much while holding the relic, but I can take down the Templar's shields. If you begin to lose sight, I can cleanse you. I can also swiftly remove the barriers the Templar will put up once his barrier is down. If I put this down, we will die." She said and they looked at her in confusion. "How do you know if we will die?" Sasuke asked and she sighed once more. "Loki had dropped the relic on accident. Our vision began to fade, our limbs felt heavy, and we felt as if we couldn't breathe. It wasn't long before he realized he had screwed up and had begun looking for it once more." She sighed and Sasuke nodded his head in an 'ah, I see' sort of manner.

"Ok, I've built up enough energy to be able to take down his shields, once the red ring appears, I want you to use blink and go to it Sasuke." Ashura said and Sasuke nodded, fully knowing that he didn't need the hunter's blink. "I will use my Sharingan, it has a long distance version of the hunter's blink." He said and she nodded. "Even better." She said and he couldn't help the smirk that crossed his lips. Her eyes narrowed at the Templar, before she tossed the arm holding the shield forwards and shot a ball of light at the Templar's shield, which took it out. The red ring appeared across the area and Sasuke's eye flashed red and he vanished from sight only to appear once more in the center of the ring.

Hinata began taking out the oracles as they had appeared, while Gaara was shooting at the Templar. "Sakura, let's go." Ashura called, catching Sakura off guard. The pinkette looked over at the silver eyed woman and nodded. They both rushed at the Templar, Sakura with her fist reared back, and Ashura with her shield held in front of her. They both collided with the Templar eliciting a mechanical screech from it, while something else came down from above and shoved what appeared to be a large shard of glass straight down through the top of it. Ashura was thrown backwards as the relic destroyed itself. She forced herself to her feet and dusted herself off, only pausing to look around at the group she had entered with; a sigh of relief was released when she saw they were all ok.

Ashura stood and made her way up to where the Templar had first appeared. She crouched next to Floyd and she placed his head back where it was meant to be, Kabr appearing to reconnect the tissue. Ashura closed his eyes, her hand resting over his eyes for a moment before she gently grasped his shoulders and hugged him lightly before allowing Kabr to take his body within him. "Take care of him for me, Kabr…" she whispered, only for the ghost to make a nod-like movement. "I will."

Ashura stood to see the group behind her, with one extra member. "Nora." Ashura greeted and the warlock nodded. "I don't understand you, why do you continue to subject yourself to this pain?" She asked, her inquisitive tone annoyed Ashura, but she wasn't annoyed with the woman, more so with her always asking the same questions. "Why are you here?" Ashura asked and Nora sighed. "I've come here to die." She said and the group looked at her in surprise. "But… why?" Hinata asked and Nora looked over to the smaller female warlock and smiled from behind her helmet. "When you die, you're going to want to die a legend. I'm old for a guardian, I'm as old as Toland was… so you should understand my motives." Nora said and Hinata frowned from beneath her helmet.

"What I'm saying… is that I believe that you guys are going to do great things… and as much as I would love to see these things come to be… I would rather die a hero than live to be a villain. Have any of you heard the story of how the first thorn was created?" She asked and they all shook their heads. "He had saw the weapon as a beautiful and deceiving rose blossom... he thought it was something beautiful to be admired, but then he realized that its anger was consuming it… the anger of the beautiful rose is the thorn, as it is so rightfully named." She said as she continued around the path between the confux. "Now do you all understand?" she asked as she glided up to the ledge and through to the path.

They all followed her to an area with a chest sitting upon a circular inlaid metal platform. "Go ahead and open it, whatever I get I will give all of you." Nora said and Ashura continued to stare at her, the other four of the group could feel the anger radiating off of her, although Nora didn't seem to notice. Hinata turned to fully face Ashura, only to notice she was holding the Fallen captain's blade in her grasp. She was turning them this way and that, grasping then releasing the lever on the handle which made electricity arc off of the blade, observing the weapons that had slain her friend a second time with an interest that seemed much too sinister to be even remotely healthy.

"Ashura? Are you alright?" she asked softly, catching the silver haired woman's attention. She looked away from the blades and over at Hinata, whose posture screamed her concern. "I'm fine." She said as she slipped the blades into her belt and followed them along the pathway. Nora glanced over at the younger woman and scoffed lightly in a slight amusement of sorts. "You're falling little one, you need to check your light." She said and Ashura sneered at her from beneath her helmet. "What do you know, hag?" she snapped and slipped ahead of the group. "Nothing you don't already know it seems…" Nora said and followed behind them.

They came to an area where there were lots of large rocks jutting up from the ground, leading up from the ground in a slant that nearly touched the ceiling in parts of the cavern. Nora continued to stroll forth, but Ashura grabbed her and threw her on the ground behind her. "What is the meaning of this, little one?" She asked and Ashura motioned for them to crouch and follow her up the nearest of the slanted rock structures. She motioned for them to stay silent as she pointed down at the creature hovering down below. "Don't let those see you… they may not actually be in this time and place, but they can see you and they will become a nuisance if we are spotted. Don't ask… I can't explain it…" she said and the group nodded in response.

"Fine, if we can't let them see us…" Sasuke began and propelled himself onto the ceiling of the cavern, Hinata, Sakura, and Gaara following him. Nora stood in surprise for a moment, never having seen anything like that before. Ashura practically saw the smile on her lips through the glass sheet of her helmet. "I'm highly impressed. The worlds we know will be left in much better hands… protect them with your life Ashura." She said and jumped to hover to the next slanted rock, leading the group along the wall to the exit of the cavern. Ashura grit her teeth and took off after them. When they were almost to the exit of the cavern, a rock fell in front of one of the gorgons, causing the body of the creature to flare up. It's laser-like sight shining everywhere trying to find the cause of the falling pebbles.

Ashura looked up to see that Hinata had fallen and Sasuke was currently holding her on the wall with a hand over her mouth to keep her silent. Ashura motioned for them to jump to the ledge nearest the exit, but to do so silently. They nodded and soundlessly landed on the largest slanted rock in the area. Nora made a questioning motion at her but Ashura jumped down to land right in front of the gorgon. It screeched as it set its sight on her. However, before it could call for the other gorgons, four swift lines of arc energy silenced its scream. It fell onto the ground then exploded. Ashura slipped the blades back into her belt and continued forth, motioning for the group to jump down and follow her.

They came to an area with several appearing and disappearing platforms. "Nora, you can hover over there, right?" she asked, pointing to the small ledge that led to the area they needed to be. "Of course… but I don't think they will make it over there." She said, pointing at Gaara and Hinata. "I doubt they will. Take them over." Ashura said then turned to Sasuke. "Long distance teleport you said?" she asked and he furrowed his brows. "I can only swap places with things." He said and she smirked from beneath her helmet, but he could feel the sinister smirk.

"Swap with my blade then, pretty boy. Let's see what you've got." She said and spun, throwing one of the four blades across the entire gap, only for it to hit the wall and bounce backwards. His eyes went wide, although unnoticed by her, and he vanished, her blade landed before her and Sasuke was across the way holding onto the ledge for a moment before he pulled himself up. "Not bad pretty boy! Not bad!" she yelled across the way as he turned to look at her. She could just barely see the red glow from his eye through his helmet, but she knew he was most likely smirking, such was his personality.

"Why don't you show me your way to cross then, if you even have one." He yelled across the cavern and she rolled her eyes, of course she did. Who did he take her for… she was just not yet ready to take the leap to get across to that part of her past. Hinata watched Ashura for a moment before she glanced to Nora, who offered her a hand. Hinata shook her head, telling her that she could make it with no issue. Nora nodded and backed away from the edge, and then she ran off over the edge and landed on the first platform, then jumped to the next, and hovered to the second to last, and continued to do so until she reached the ledge where Sasuke stood.

Hinata and Gaara proceeded to swiftly jump from platform to platform until they too reached the other side. Hinata glanced up to see that Ashura was walking away from the ledge they had jumped from, only to appear at the one above it. The sound of electricity was chirping through the air when she jumped, the only thing signifying her departure from the ledge was the brilliant streak of light that shot swiftly across the gap. Sasuke shook his head. "Show off." He grumbled and made his way across the ledge over to the area where Ashura was awaiting them.

Ashura's entire body repressed a shiver as she stared at the doors. She strolled forwards silently, although everyone could see her trembling limbs. The door opened and she froze once more, all the fingers on her arms were twitching, even the mechanical ones. Nora grasped her shoulder and Ashura jolted to look at her. The glass of her helmet vanished to show her face except for the respirator helping her breathe. Her eyes were dull and unfocused, but the twitches in her cheekbones were trembling in her rage. She swapped over to her rifle and faced to the doors.

"Gatekeeper, then Atheon. Do not get trapped in the portals." She said then took off running towards the doors as they began to slide open. They all followed her swiftly, only to slide to a stop and begin firing off tracking rockets at the gatekeeper. After a few more rounds of rockets it vanished and the gates flickered, signaling the need to open them. Ashura fisted her hands and looked towards the group. "Touch your hands to those pillars." She said, motioning for the square pillars surrounded by a small red circle of light. "One at a time though, it opens the gates." She said and they all nodded, placing their palms onto the pillar. She stepped up to the left pillar, and they could tell she was having a bit of trouble.

The sickened look on her face and the dry heaves were a dead giveaway. Sakura motioned for Sasuke to join her at the portal and he nodded. He jumped up onto the ledge and ended up taking two steps backwards. At the edge of the portal lay the upper torso of Kira, Ashura's twin sister. Her corpse lay on its stomach, what appeared to be a clean slice being the thing that separated her from her lower half. Blood was pooled around her form, and tears pooled undried beside her cheek. Her mouth was twisted into a saddened smile, which was probably what had wrought the majority of Ashura's tears. Sasuke crouched beside Kira's body and he dipped his fingers into her uncoagulated blood, it was still warm.

He turned Ashura towards him and placed a palm print of Kira's blood on the back of her armor, and wrote in Japanese 'the bane of wolves' on the front of her armor. He then grabbed both of her hands and shoved them into her sister's blood, causing a horrified look to cross her features. He then proceeded to spit a flame at the blood to dry it forcefully. "How dare you desecrate her remains!" Ashura managed to snarl and he gave her a glare from beneath his helmet.

"Now her blood is literally on your hands, you are the one who will set her soul free." He snapped and Hinata looked up at him with awestruck eyes. "S-Sasuke?" she asked and he turned to her and motioned for her to place her hands back on the totem until it opened the gates. "Now, you listen to me, and you listen carefully. That is the blood of your sister, and she will forever be with you now. Do not disgrace her, do not let her down." He snapped and grasped her hands and turned the once white gloves to her face. "You see that!? That is your responsibility!" he snapped and her eyes widened. "If you ever want any sort of peace, become the bane of wolves, become your sister's legacy! Save her soul!" he snarled and her shaky eyes tried to focus on him, but couldn't.

"Now, Let's go. We have to find the rest of her so we can put her to rest properly, but before we can do that… we need to destroy Atheon." He said and despite the tears streaking over her cheeks, she nodded. She turned back to the portal as it had almost finished opening. A purple glow was emanating from beside her, but she didn't care what it was. She knew it was another of his abilities. "You've lost a lot too, haven't you… Sasuke?" She asked as she began stepping through the portal. "Yes, I have. My brother killed my family because they were trying to overthrow the leader of our village." He said and she looked at him from over her shoulder. "I killed my brother, and then learned the truth." He said and she wiped her eyes then froze, realizing that she had just smeared her sister's blood across her face.

"And yet you pity this fool…" She said as she strolled over to the relic and attached it to her arm. "I will take out the praetorian, you kill the oracles." She said and he nodded. She began charging the praetorians and he sent arrow after arrow right into the center of each oracle, which engulfed them in a sphere of void energy and killed them. "What a wonderful ability that must be." She said and he nodded as he set loose another arrow and it pierced the torso of yet another of the praetorians.

"Follow me." she said and he took off after her. They barely managed to escape the first portal as Ashura dropped the relic for Nora to put on and follow her. "We have to grab the second relic and kill the gatekeeper within the Venus portal." Ashura said and Nora and Sasuke nodded at her, slipping through the second portal with ease. Ashura ran to grab the second relic but the gatekeeper sent out a shockwave to knock her backwards. She grit her teeth and dove for the relic, barely grasping it between her middle and index fingers. She strapped it to her arm and put up the bubble to clear her and Sasuke's vision. Nora was clearing her own vision of the darkness that had engulfed her sight as well.

Both of the women exchanged nods and rushed at the gatekeeper with their relic shields raised. The explosion caused by the collision of the relic shields against the gatekeeper's shields sent the woman flying backwards only for them to roll to a stop at opposite sides of the area. A heavy foreboding aura permeated the air and Ashura shakily pushed her face from the ground to look at the intimidating creature that caused the chills to roll down her spine. Her eyes widened as she took in the size of the creature, it was larger than Atheon was…

With a single slash of the blade, the gatekeeper emitted a large explosion which blinded them.

:-:_:-:

Hinata, Sakura, and Gaara were watching the portal for their friends to return. A bright light shone from the center area in between the gates and the conflux. Hinata peered around the edge to see what the bright light was, but soon gasped and motioned for Gaara and Sakura to follow her lead. She held a finger to her lips and motioned for them to crouch and move to the furthest side of the totem they were touching, without moving their hands of course.

Hinata held her arm up to view the life force of the creature standing there, but all she could manage to see was a red bar on her gauntlets with red question marks beside it's name. Atheon. Hinata glanced back at the people behind her and held a finger to her lips once she showed them what her gauntlets had gathered from reading it's life force.

It wasn't long before Ashura, Sasuke and Nora jumped from the portal. They crouched and ran to the other side, grabbing Kira's torso as they went. Ashura set her sister down with her limbs appearing to be completely attached once more. The ghosts had odd abilities for such small mechanical creatures.

Sasuke flickered into sight right next to Hinata and Sakura. "It knows you are here, it was just trying to find a way to kill all of you at the same time, I would recommend getting away from it." He said and they all nodded, following him around the side of the creature's line of sight. they reached the area where Nora and Ashura were, but they said nothing to the white haired woman.

Sasuke pulled his electrified blade, but Hinata grabbed his wrist. "You cant kill it alone." she said and he nodded. "I know, but if we don't start we will be here forever trying to." he said and Ashura looked over at him. "My relic wasn't destroyed, but it needs time to recharge." She said and he nodded. "Once you weaken the creature I will destroy it." Nora said, gaining the attention of the Uchiha. He held out a hand to her and she grasped it firmly with both of her hands. "You take care young ones; this is going to be my last battle. I'm going to take Atheon straight to hell with me." She said as she shook his hand once firmly.

"Don't worry about us, you have friends waiting on the other side, Nora." He said and She nodded, the hidden smile on her lips obviously going unseen by the young man before her. Sasuke turned to face Atheon once more, but this time his sharingan flared dangerously. Sakura, Gaara, and Hinata knew what he was about to do but Nora and Ashura had no idea, so they stepped back. Black flames licked their way up Atheon's feet, eliciting a wail of surprised anger from the creature.

"Sasuke, it's health doesn't seem to be affected by your flames…" Hinata said and he nodded, seeing as the creature had stopped screeching. "I'm going to put them out then." He sighed and she nodded, but her hands were engulfed with the same blue heads that Toland had seen when he had brought her back. Ashura looked over to Sakura and saw strange markings crossing over her forehead.

Nothing changed about Gaara, but he had pulled out his rifle and begun loading it. That same large purple beast from before began to seep up around Sasuke and Ashura resisted the chill that shook her form. Sasuke teleported to right behind Atheon, His four armed creature trying it's best to hold the large Vex still. the diamond shaped relic appeared once more and Ashura stood, charging the beam to throw at Atheon to shut down his abilities for a moment. She crouched on the enter platform and fired off the shot, causing Atheon to jerk within Sasuke's grasp.

Both Sakura and Hinata lunged for Atheon, sending their overly strengthened fists into its abdomen. Sasuke continued to attempt to crush the large vex in on itself, but it didn't seem to want to give in easily. Ashura grit her teeth and lunged forward, slamming her fists into the torso of the robotic creature, but it sent her flying backwards into the wall.

Ashura hit the ground and she didn't stand back up, the slightest bit of blood was trickling from between the skin of her face and the eyes were wide in pain, but she didn't appear to be breathing. Hinata Motioned for Sakura to go check on her, but Atheon sent a shock of energy flying at the pinkette. She flipped to her left to avoid the rapid arc energy blast aimed at her, but it wasn't helping her in the slightest. Sasuke yelled out as Atheon fell over backwards to collapse his Susanoo.

Sasuke struggled to avoid the swinging arms aimed at him, he didn't understand how Atheon could have gotten free so easily, but he wasn't going to linger and enrage him. Sakura grunted and rushed at Atheon once more, leaving Hinata to check on both Sasuke and Ashura. Hinata tugged off Ashura's helmet and felt for a pulse. She waited with baited breath as her fingers ran along the curve of her nape until she felt a shallow pulse. Hinata released a relieved breath and turned to face Sasuke. "Are you alright?" She asked and he nodded. "I'm fine, thank you." He said as he looked over at Ashura. "She may not be though." he sighed and Hinata shook her head at him as she grasped his arm gently.

"She will be fine for now, we can't let Sakura continue to fight that thing alone…" Hinata said softly and he looked over at the pinkette who was dodging both blows from Atheon and Gaara's rifle rounds. Sasuke nodded and pulled Hinata to her feet. "I have something of a plan…" he said and Hinata looked up at him waiting for his command. "Use the nova bomb's three projectiles and throw it at his feet, that way even though it hurts him he won't move for long." Sasuke said and she nodded. "Sakura and I will ram him from the back to force him to stumble." Sasuke said and Nora glanced at him this time.

"You're going to throw him over the edge." She said and he nodded at her. "I want you to gather the grenades that everyone has spawned already." he said to her and she released a laugh. "You're giving this one her dying wish." she commented and he nodded as he grasped her hand tightly. "Goodbye, it was nice to meet you." He said and Sakura landed beside him, breathing heavily.

"So what is the plan?" Sakura asked once she had caught her breath enough to speak once more. "Give me all your grenades." Nora said and everyone piled up their grenades beside her. "Sakura, Gaara, you two come with me, Hinata, you know what to do. Nora…" Sasuke began, but stopped and offered a salute to the warlock woman. "Farewell." he said and she returned his salute.

Sasuke, Gaara, and Sakura took off towards the left rear side behind Atheon, while Hinata and Nora jumped into the center. Hinata released her Nova bomb and jumped back to where Ashura lay, and began picking off any encroaching enemies. The three behind Atheon ran at him and collided with his back while Nora jumped and grabbed a hold of Atheon's shoulders, dropping the pins to each of the grenades on the ground before she did so.

Atheon tumbled over the edge and Nora released a laugh as she descended into the darkness. Sasuke and Sakura ran over to the edge to look over, but the explosion from far down below sent mechanical part from Atheon back up at them. Atheon's head hit the ground and rolled past Sasuke's foot, who then proceeded to reach and lift the mechanical head and stare at it. "You have caused enough pain…" He said and allowed Andal to take the head within himself.

Each of them made their way over to the edge to give last salute to Nora, and then they turned back to where Ashura was slumped against the wall, breathing but just barely. Hinata stumbled forwards and hit the ground, Causing Sasuke to lunge forwards and grab her. They were all exhausted and within reason. He pulled her up and he carried her to the surface bridal style, while Gaara was carrying Ashura. Sakura held Wei Ning in her grasp, tears rolling over her cheeks as she stared at the small ghost.

She had Vell Tarlowe in her other hand, fully understanding that the lack of light residing in the mechanical eye of the ghost meant there was nothing they could do to help Ashura get her sister back. Gaara would more often than not glance over at the pinkette, understanding fully why she was crying. "There may be nothing we can do for Kira, but we can help Ashura." Gaara said but Sasuke shook his head from the front of the line. "There is nothing we can do for ashura, other than opening the reef to her. She's going to have to spend a while in the medical wing, so there's nothing else we can do. We are going to research Crota, because we need to rid the earth of his filth, just as we did with Atheon." Sasuke said and Sakura nodded.

Each of their ships hovered overhead and teleported them into the ship. Once everyone was in their ship they took off towards earth, not one of them speaking over their headsets. They all knew what was coming when they were to reach earth. It was going to be a lot like when they had come back from the war and they knew it.

The first faces they saw when they stepped onto the hangar were the three vanguard leaders, the speaker, and Loki.

"Are they with you?" Ikora asked, causing Sasuke to nod. "We have them right here." Sakura said as she carried Kira from her ship. Gaara carried Ashura, while Sasuke helped Hinata step out of his.

"We brought them home." Sasuke said as he motioned for Loki to step forwards. He hit his knees and clutched both of his sisters to him tightly. He didn't cry, he didn't say a word or make a single noise, he just held them. Ashura looked over at him through half lidded eyes. "They destroyed Atheon… They did it…" She whispered before she slumped over and began heaving, Only to splatter blackened blood all over the ground.

"Bury her and Floyd, I will be in the medical wing." Ashura said as she collapsed in front of Cayde, who helped carry her to the medical wing.

I'm going to give a list of the actual names of the ghosts of the lucky seven here, that way if you want to know why I chose these, you can look them up on the destiny wiki page, or through reading the grimoire.

Naruto- Thalor (crucible)

Sasuke- Andal brask (Vanguard)

Hinata- Toland (Crota)

Ino- pahanin Errata (Vault of glass)

Sakura – Wei ning (Crota)

Gaara- Eriana-3 (Crota)

Shikamaru- Sai Mota (Crota)


	6. Of the Heart, The Eyes, and the Soul.

I do not own Naruto or destiny.

Hinata watched her carefully; she knew what was wrong with the older woman. This was after all, the funeral of her twin held for the awoken who had come to say their farewells. Ashura's face was slightly stoic in a sense, which confused her to no end. "Ashura?" Hinata called softly and Loki glanced over at his sister, who was swaying on her feet now. Her skin looked better than it had in a while, but Hinata wasn't blind. This had occurred overnight it seemed. Hinata was about to reach out to Ashura but Sasuke grasped her shoulder gently and whispered in her ear.

"Go after her…. Make sure she's ok." He said softly and she nodded, running to catch up to the white haired woman. They hadn't even had to board a ship to find her; she was in the outer part of the tower where Petra stood to give assignments for the queen when she came over. She had seen Ashura, Prince Uldren, Krux, and Petra standing near the edge of the area. Her eyes softened as she watched the encounter between the few.

"What would you have to talk to me about, half breed?" He spat. Ashura grit her teeth as she looked up at Prince Uldren she wasn't sure how to react to what he had said, but it was rude the way he had spat those words. "Fine. I will leave then." She said and he tightly grasped her wrist with one of his hands. Petra stared at her with her one visible eye wide. "Your highness?" She managed and he shook his head, causing Ashura to look up at him. The glow of his usually smug and annoyed eyes had dimmed and she could see the pain that resided there.

"Ashura..." Hinata called to her and the silver eyed woman looked at her with confused eyes. "I'm so sorry for your loss." Hinata said approaching her. "I'd lost her so long ago... Please don't." Ashura whispered, but Petra's eyes softened and she whispered something to Hinata, who blinked. She nodded and followed Petra. "Forgive me." Uldren said and she looked up at him with furrowed brows. "There's nothing to forgive. You've done nothing wrong." She said and he frowned deeper. "I suppose in your mind you don't think I've done me wrong. I've belittled you because I wanted to have my partner back, but I knew she'd never return, so when you did..." He began but his older sister pulled his hands from Ashuras wrist and placed her fingers on Uldren's lips to silence him. "Words are ammunition to destroy you. I suppose you should keep better check on the words you speak when in an area where one could be heard."

Mara looked over Ashura with a weary glance, but an elegant smile crossed her lips. "You look just like her at a first glance, but you're so much more." Mara said as she sat in her throne. "How so?" Ashura asked, her tone had an edge to it that the queen did not appreciate. "Your sister blindly worshipped my brother and myself, but sought no respect. You worship no one... Not even yourself... You worship none but try to protect so many..." Mara stated and Uldren watched her.

"My dearest brother tried to kill you... He saw her image and felt betrayed." She said and Ashura frowned, reaching into her pocket to pull the picture. She handed it to Uldren, who stared at it in a slight surprise. It was a picture of Loki, Kira and Ashura. "Learn the difference." She bit out and walked out. Krux followed her down between the small rivers of water in the center of the room and out of the room. "Prince has odd ways, yes?" She asked, towering over Ashura. "Yeah." Ashura sighed and thought back to the image she had shoved in Uldren's face. Ashura grit her teeth and stared at her reflection in the shining metal plate of her gauntlet. Warmth started over her cheeks and splashed against the metal. Loki had held such a brilliant grin, and Kira had held such a lovely smile... But... She... She herself had forced her smile. She reached up and smeared her tears across her cheeks, revealing a familiar aura that was embedded deep within her skin.

Her eyes flashed and she pulled the bottle of concealer out to cover the inky black aura beneath her skin. A soft touch startled her and the glass jar shattered against the ground, causing Krux to eye her oddly. Hinata held a caring look which caused Ashura's lip to tremble. "You're going to be ok..." Hinata said, grasping her hand tightly. Ashura's face scrunched up and a sob escaped her. An angry, deprived sort of sob that caused a river of tears to flow freely down her cheeks. Hinata pulled a cloth from her pocket and she wiped the tears from the older woman's eyes, smearing the new make-up away as she did so.

"I'm dying... Hinata." She said as she removed the contact lenses from her eyes to show the younger woman her unresponsive dull silver eyes. "I'm dying and there are only two that could save me, but I don't think either will. The difference between my sister and me? She was meant to live while I was meant to die." Ashura said and sat on the edge of the metal landing of the reef. Hinata frowned at her, but still sat next to her on the ledge. "You know… sometimes I think that too, but then I see Sasuke, Sakura, and Gaara and those thoughts vanish." She whispered and Ashura stared at her oddly.

"How exactly do you make those thoughts vanish? I watched her die. I watched Floyd die, he died for me… How am I supposed to rid myself of these thoughts when I myself refuse to let them go?" Ashura asked and Hinata smiled. "You fight them, you banish them… look at Prince Uldren… I have no doubt that he has seen some horrible things in his life, so just think… how does he keep himself held up?" Hinata asked her and Ashura blinked, her voice momentarily gone. "He found something to kill those thoughts. You should too. What is one thing you hold close, like a goal…" Hinata asked and Ashura fisted her hands tightly. "I'm going to avenge Andal Brask." She sneered and Hinata stared at her in confusion for a moment before she decided to ask. "The previous Vanguard leader for the hunters?" She asked and Ashura nodded.

"He was Cayde-6's best friend, and he was murdered." Ashura said and Hinata nodded. "I understand, just be careful ok?" Hinata asked and Ashura nodded. "And… when I said think of a goal… I didn't mean a vengeance. I meant something happy, like getting married or having children…" Hinata said and Ashura frowned deeply. "I'm never going to be able to have children… and if I ever did I would only be punishing them because as I said… I'm dying." Ashura said and Hinata shook her head at the older woman. "You're only dying because you're giving up." Hinata said and Ashura sighed even deeper.

"You just don't understand…" Ashura began but Krux placed one of her large feminine hands over Ashura's mouth ever so delicately. "Ashura sees darkness… but Hinata sees light, even in darkness. Maybe… Ashura should try and see the light too? Yes?" she asked and Hinata beamed up at Krux. "Krux gets it." Hinata said cheerfully and Krux ruffled Ashura's hair. "Ashura should try new hair, yes? Get nice mate." Krux said and Ashura began to laugh, and laugh until tears streaked over her cheeks. Hinata smiled at the laughing woman, but once Ashura looked back at her that laughter had turned back into sobs. "Everyone hates me… Floyd sacrificed himself for me… and Kira's death was my fault because I allowed her to follow me into the vault…" Ashura sobbed and Hinata's eyes softened and she hugged Ashura lightly.

"They all hate me because I'm weak, I'm annoyingly overconfident, and I have a bad attitude." She said, rubbing at her eyes once more, her voice trembling. "Now… I can guarantee you that that's not true." Hinata said and Ashura looked at her as she stepped away from her. "I always thought I was weak and absolutely useless, but… you see those people over there… laughing and having a good time? They are my family," Hinata said and pointed at Sakura and Gaara who were laughing while Sasuke was rubbing his eyes. A strange look flew through Ashura's eyes, but she turned back to listen to Hinata. "And we are going to go search for more of my family, because they are what always kept me going. We still have Naruto, Ino, and Shikamaru to find. "If you could help us with this… I think you would be a perfect part of our little misfit group." Hinata said with a smile and Ashura's mouth fell open slightly, her eyes wide in shock. "You… would actually want me?" she asked and out of nowhere Sakura landed beside Ashura and tossed an arm over her shoulder.

"Hey! What are y'all talking about?" She asked and Ashura opened her mouth to speak but Krux laughed lightly. "We are adopting Ashura." She said and Hinata giggled. "Oh? Adopting? You mean inducting her into the group?" Sakura asked with a smile and Krux nodded. "Sounds good to me." Gaara said and Hinata grinned at Ashura. "You should really get a haircut though." Kabr said and Mara Sov tapped Ashura on her shoulder.

"Your grace." The group echoed and they all bowed. "I seek Ashura for a while…" She said and they all nodded. "Krux, assist the tower where you can, but return home safe, my kell." She said and Krux crouched to one knee so Mara could trail her fingertips across her forehead. "Go speak with Eris… She will tell you exactly what you're going to need to do next." Ashura said and followed Mara to the loading dock.

Hinata smiled and waved her off, not wasting a second to turn and chase after her group. They were all crowded around Eris who was levitating the glowing green orb around her. "Ashura told us to come see you." Hinata said and Eris nodded. "She sent you into the right direction, young one. I sense your light… and it is so enticing and absolutely blinding." Eris said as she trailed her fingers over Hinata's fore head. "I understand why the speaker was so amazed with you and the power you hold." She said and Hinata smiled.

"It's not mine, but theirs. And once we have recovered every one of our friends, I hope their power will leave me so they can show you all just what it means to be strong." Hinata said and Eris shook her head. "I'm not talking about their power. I'm talking about yours, I can tell the difference." Eris said and Hinata stared at her in surprise. "That's beside the point though… once you have all seven of you send Ashura to me. I do not want to miss the show." Eris said as her orb circled Hinata. "She was right to send you to me." She began, and as she was going to speak once more, Cayde-6 strolled up and draped an arm over her shoulders. "Going philosophical on the kids, are ya Eris?" he asked and the distaste that crossed her face was visible to all, not that cayde-6 cared, though.

"Cayde. Remove yourself from me this instant." Eris growled and he shrugged his arm off of her. "Whatever, you and that stupid rock can go back to your corner for all I care. Emo corner." Cayde said as he tossed his hands into the air and shrugged. He was not expecting the orb to slam right into his face and send him sprawling to the ground. "What the hell Eris?!" he snapped and Eris offered a sinister smile. "I cannot control that of which is not of my will." She said and he flipped her off as he stood and made his way back over to where Ashura was standing, laughing herself to tears.

"Either way… before I was interrupted." She began and the group looked back to her. "There are three of you left and I know where each of them are. One lies within the ruins of the wakening, where the wizards are trying to bring Crota back to life. Before you can defeat the Wakers and destroy Crota's soul, you must first destroy the Fist of Crota. Once you kill the fist, the underlings will rise." She said and they nodded. "The Hand, the Heart, and the Eyes will need to no longer exist among the realm of the living." She said and they nodded once more, not understanding exactly what she was talking about, but they were following along. Once you defeat the underlings you must head to the cosmodrome and defend Rasputin. Sources say that without killing the underlings, you will not be able to kill the ogre that Omnigul is going to attempt to summon. Without killing the ogre, you cannot kill the wakers of Crota." Eris explained and they stared at her for a moment.

"What she means is that without killing the weaker ones first, you'll never reach Crota's soul, meaning you'll die." Ashura said and Eris nodded. "With each underling that you kill, you weaken both Crota and Omnigul." Ashura said and Hinata nodded, her eyes determined. "Omnigul has a Hunter, the Fist of Crota has a Titan, and the Wakers have another hunter." Eris interjected and the group exchanged glances. "So I'm going to say that the Knight has Naruto." Sakura said and Sasuke nodded. "I can agree upon that, that idiot could never be stealthy like a hunter." Sasuke said and Hinata giggled "And Ino can?" Sakura snorted and Sasuke sighed. "Well I guess after I died nothing changed then, huh?" he asked and she shook her head. "Not really, but things did change. Somewhat." She said and Gaara nodded.

"What are we waiting for then? Let's go get them." Hinata said and Sasuke stared at her in a stunned silence, she was excited because she would get to see Naruto again. He felt a twinge of jealousy but he crushed that creature swiftly. "Come on, let's go Hinata." Sasuke said and offered her a hand. She took it with a smile. "We are going to seek out the Heart, the Hand, and the eyes. You two go kill the Fist." Sasuke said and the others nodded. "Sasuke why aren't we going after Naruto?" Hinata asked and Sasuke blinked down at her, but remained silent. "Be safe, Hinata, Sasuke!" Ashura's voice echoed behind them and Hinata turned to smile at Ashura, but saw that her hair was already different. Hinata giggled and turned forwards. "So she is trying to get his attention." She laughed softly, taking one last glance back at Ashura.

"What's so amusing?" Sasuke asked her and she smiled up at him. "She may just live…" She said and Sasuke furrowed his brows at her in confusion. "Live?" he asked and she smiled even wider. "Actually live, not just wander aimlessly day by day. Before they reached the docking area the intercom came on and everyone turned towards the ledge of the tower and either saluted with their right fist clenched over their heart, or their right hand above their eye. They were about to send Floyd and Kira off once and for all. Mara Sov levitated Kira's ashes high above the tower, an ethereal blue light engulfing the urn they were in. "Be free, my Bane of Wolves… Fight your last battle, and drift to sleep once and for all my comrade." Mara said and electricity crackled from the urn, followed by the void barrier seeping out around the urn to protect the guardians below from the lightning show overhead.

The lightning burst from the barrier and became a void that engulfed Kira's ashes, leaving a void to dissipate from the sky, lightning still sparking from within. Ikora stepped forth with Floyd's urn in hand. She unscrewed the lid and held the urn above her head. A flaming phoenix shot from within the urn and flew all around Kira's void and over all of the guardians. It halted overhead the speaker and his two assistants, only to bend backwards and begin to swirl inwards on itself, representing the nova bomb. The lighting void orb began to circle as the solar infused nova bomb did. They collided and created a beautiful light show. "Sometimes… moving on after death can be a beautiful thing." Hinata said and Sasuke nodded silently. He dropped his hand from over his eye as she dropped her fist from over her chest.

:-:-:-:

Sakura followed Gaara through the tunnels with a sigh. "Poor Ashura…" She sighed and Gaara turned to look at her with an odd look. "You're worried about her still?" He asked and she nodded. "She just had to see her sister and friend move on into the afterlife and she's still here, suffering." Sakura said and Gaara shook his head. "She's making herself suffer, but she's actually not suffering, she's just being pessimistic on life. She has both Cayde and Eris, not only that but she still has her older brother and her friends. She thinks she's lost, so she's forcing herself to suffer. She'll figure it out, right now we need to focus on getting Naruto." He said and Sakura nodded, a small smile crossing her lips.

"What do you think Sasuke and Hinata are up to right now?" Sakura asked as she shoved an acolytes gun through its abdomen. "Not a clue… hopefully sitting in wait for the hand to appear." He said and she nodded. "Well, let's get this over with shall we?" she asked and He nodded as he stepped down into the circular room of the cave where a small puddle resided in the center. Gaara hit his knees after Sakura had walked over to the puddle. Her eyes went wide and she struggled to catch her breath. She clutched at her throat, gasping for air as a heavy atmosphere fell upon the room. Deep amused chuckles echoed through the cave and Sakura looked up to see a knight standing over her, his blade raised high above his head. Sand came from nowhere and knocked the Knight away. "Sakura!" her ghost yelled and she looked at the ghost, its light comforting on her.

"As long as you stay within my light you can breathe properly." Wei ning said and Sakura looked to see that Eriana was shining her light on Gaara as well. "Alright, well, sit in my armor, I'm about to take this guy down." Sakura said and Gaara waved a hand through the air, causing sand to wrap around the Fist's feet in solid tendrils. Sakura smirked and slammed her fists together, causing a ripple in the air around her fists. "You screwed with the wrong lady!" She said with a smirk as she lunged at the knight and when her fist collided with his blade instead of him she was surprised. She realized then, that she couldn't run, and she couldn't jump.

It released yet another sinister laugh, but she continued her barrage of punches on the creature to try and weaken its defenses at least a little, but the only one getting broken down was her. She hunched over and tried to catch her breath, but the knight showed no mercy. Gaara rammed the knight, which made it stumble into the pillar to its right, revealing the crystal with a guardian within it, completely. "It's Naruto." He managed as he shoved Eriana towards the crystal. Sakura took a deep breath and did the same with Wei Ning. She rolled away from the knight as it lunged forwards and slung its blade down at her.

Sakura hit her knees, but not before she threw her arms up and placed a barrier between her and the Knight, who knew if he moved within the barrier, she would blind him. He stomped his foot and thrall began flooding from the walls. Sakura and Gaara set to blasting them back out of the bubble with their shotguns, but they were soon going to run low on ammo. Sakura fell on her rump and began breathing heavily. "I know, it's exhausting, isn't it?" Gaara asked with a frown as he circled their barrier with his sand and hardened it around them. "Maybe we should have asked Sasuke or Hinata to come with us…" Sakura said, as she slumped over within the sphere of sand.

A screech of pain echoed around on the outside, but Gaara did not drop his sphere. Instead, a swirling blue light lit up the inside of the sphere. "Hey Gaara, what the hell was that thing?" A familiar voice echoed into the sphere and Sakura's lip trembled as she lunged out and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Oh, hey! Sakura! Gaara!" he said with a grin and she released him to help Gaara to his feet. "So what is this place?" he asked and she smiled and shook her head. "Long story." She looked over to the dead body of the knight to see a golden ghost dragging itself over its body. "Hey, Thalor, buddy… he's dead already… no need to t-bag him." Naruto sighed and Sakura snorted. "Crucible, I'm guessing?" she asked and the ghost looked her over.

"Honestly if I had my way I would find the bastard that killed me and drag my robot ass all over him." Thalor grumbled and Naruto sighed. "Figures you would get the overly psyched up titan from the crucible." Sakura sighed and Naruto grinned. "Ok, so what exactly is going on here?" he asked and she sighed and rubbed her fingers over the bridge of her nose. "Long story short, we have been brought back in a time where there are people who need us, odd creatures want to kill us, and even bigger odder creatures want to destroy earth." Sakura said and Naruto nodded. "There's always war… isn't there?" he asked and she nodded with a frown. "Sadly enough… But we need to contact the others and inform them that operation destroy the hands and the eyes is a go." Sakura said and they led Naruto out of the dark cavern.

"Oh, hey what is this blue thing and this purple thing?" Naruto asked and Sakura smiled. "Watch this." She said and she tapped the corner of the blue one to the fingers of his gauntlets and it sucked it within, then showed an image of a chest piece. "Tap on that on the screen." She said and the new armor wrapped around his torso and jutted out in odd angles, signature of titan armor. She did the same with the purple one and a judgment 8 formed in his grasp. "Ok… that's awesome, but what is this thing?" he asked and she sighed. "I was confused at first too… but it's what these people call a shotgun. It shoots small round pellets at one target, so if one pellet misses the others are more likely to hit." She explained and he nodded, not quite understanding, but showing he had heard and had a general idea of what it did.

'Gaara, you there?' Sasuke's voice came in over the comms and Naruto nearly crapped himself with excitement. "Sasuke!" he yelled into the comm and he heard Sasuke sigh deeply. 'I see you have found him, good. This means that we can take down the Hand and the Eyes now, correct?" he asked and Gaara nodded with a soft 'yeah'. 'Alright, you guys go take out the heart, it's in the refinery. She's a wizard.' Sasuke said and he nodded. "What have you guys been fighting off while we were suffering at the hands of the fist?" Sakura asked and Sasuke clicked his tongue in annoyance. 'Those blades were getting in my way, but she wouldn't let me destroy them all… she said there were too many for me.' he sighed and Gaara chuckled softly. "Sasuke, there probably were… those blades are a huge issue right now." She said and he shrugged. 'I know, but to think they believe they could try and hurt her and get away with it.' Sasuke grumbled, but Hinata's irate 'I'm fine, Sasuke.' In the background barely registered with Naruto.

"Oh! Sasuke's got a girlfriend? One that's not Sakura?" Naruto yelled and Sakura punched him over the head. "I'm with you, you idiot." She growled out and he grinned up at her cutely, causing her to blush. "I know… I'm just surprised Sasuke has a girlfriend that can handle his bitchiness." Naruto said and Sakura sighed and shook her head. 'She's not my girlfriend you idiot.' Sasuke sighed, but shook his head. 'Anyways, I need to get going. The Hand crawled out from hiding.' He said and they all nodded and bid him good luck. "So what is this place like?" Naruto asked and Sakura frowned at him as they exited the dark tunnel.

"A wasteland…" she said and his eyes were wide in terror.

:-:-:-:-:

Hinata crouched next to the thrall hidden in the dark corner of the room. She held Sasuke's blade tightly in her grasp and with a swift movement she removed the thrall's head, setting of a series of shrill screams. Acolytes flooded from the surrounding rooms and Sasuke flipped his chokuto from its sheathe and sent lightning at each of them she watched as he swiftly spun and clashed blades with the knight. The hand of Crota. Hinata lunged to her feet and began taking out the surrounding acolytes that had begun flooding in once more. She spun and lit up the room with a backwards rotation.

Sasuke continued to exchange blows with the knight, but he was also watching her out of the corner of his eye. He was making sure she was going to be ok as well. She spun swiftly on her heel and lunged at the knight and he jumped away, allowing her empty palm to send the knight skidding backwards. "Let's get this over with quickly, how about that?" he asked and she nodded with a small confident smile. The blue aura of her chakra flowed out around her hands and created the lion fist. They both lunged at the knight at the same time and exchanged blows with the creature as it jerked in every direction from the impact. Hinata slammed her palms together and a white blade of chakra formed in her grasp. She nodded at Sasuke, who vanished from sight and reappeared on the other side of the knight, its body hunched over in one direction. Hinata slid forwards and spun her chakra blade right at the other side of the creature. She released the blade at the last minute and slid in a semi-circle, only to then stand and face Sasuke as the knight crumbled to the floor behind her.

Sasuke watched Hinata with prideful eyes as she stared up at him with an excited look in her eyes. "Very nice.." he said and ruffled her hair. She beamed up at him and he cracked the tiniest of smiles. "You know you don't have to seek my approval, don't you?" he asked and she blushed and began fumbling with her fingers as she twisted the toe of her shoe in the floor. "I'm not saying you don't have to try and impress me, I'm just saying you don't need to." He said and she looked up at him with a smile. "I… I just don't want you to think that I'm useless…" she whispered and he grasped her shoulders gently. "I can promise you one thing…" he said and she looked up at him in curiosity. "You're not useless… so don't ever think you are." He said and she smiled softly.

"You think so highly of me… and I don't even know why…" she whispered as she waddled along behind him, her fingers twiddling constantly. "Look here… I think so highly of you because against all odds, you survived. You fought for what you believed in, even if it almost killed you. You sacrificed yourself to try and save Hanabi… you sacrificed yourself to save Naruto more often than not. You are the type of person who would give until they had nothing left to give, and then they would still keep giving. I killed people. Slaughtered innocents… almost killed Naruto more often than not… and I killed my brother. I didn't find out the truth until after I had killed him." He said and she stared up at him as she walked by his side. "But…" she began but he cut her off. "I'm an awful person, I've done horrible things that haunt me in my sleep. I can never repay anyone for what I have done…" he said but she shook her head.

"I don't think you are a horrible person." She said and he stopped moving completely. "I know you aren't…" she said and she grasped his false arm gently. "This… this is how I know you aren't a bad person. When you lost your arm you helped Naruto save the shinobi world. You were angry, mistreated, and mislead… but you were never evil…" She whispered and he looked down at her with soft eyes as she placed her much smaller hand against his larger one. "You made my little bow happy, and I have no doubt my little girl loved singing to you…" She whispered as she gently released his hand. She beamed up at him and he couldn't help but wrap his arm around the back of her head and embrace her lightly. "I thought I was cursed to suffer for all eternity because I let you fall… I thought the gods were punishing me because I allowed your light to vanish…" he said as he released her.

"Come on, don't think like that… I wasn't that special." She whispered with a blush and he chuckled and jabbed the forehead of her helm with two fingers, just as Itachi used to do to him. Hinata stared at him with wide eyes, that touch was always so annoying to her and Sasuke as children, seeing as Itachi used to boop their foreheads like that all the time, but she knew exactly what that little touch meant. Her lips trembled and her eyes began to water as her shoulders began to shake. "Sasuke…" she whimpered and he chuckled at her tears. "I knew you would remember what that meant." He said as he peered around the corner to see if there were any Hive or Fallen around. "Even if you think you aren't that special, there are always people who think you are." He said and she nodded though she was still sniffling from inside her helm.

"Alright, Hinata… there are three acolytes here that we have to kill. I'm going to take out the one near the urn." He said and she sniffled loudly in response, causing him to chuckle lightly. "You're such an emotional sap sometimes, Hinata." He said and she hmphed in response. "You're mean for reminding me…" she grumbled and he shook his head in amusement. He summoned his void bow and released a single arrow at the acolyte in front of the urn. It disintegrated and three more appeared, but their life on the scanners of his gauntlets were the same of a major. "Alright, we gotta deal with these guys swiftly, alright?" he asked and she nodded. She equipped her shotgun and rushed at the first one she saw, while he rushed at one with his blade.

She killed hers and she turned to rush the last one, but Sasuke had wiped that one right off the cliff by using the one he had impaled on his blade. 'Hey guys, come in Sasuke!' Sakura called over the comms and Hinata smiled at him as he sighed. "Yes?" he asked and Sakura gave him a dirty look from the gauntlet screen. 'Ok, so… we've killed the heart. We are going to go ahead and take out the ogre, seeing as Gaara has filled his armor with sand, created yet another one of his outer armor of sand things, and found a bowl of sand. He's all sanded down.' She said and released a little giggle. 'But… yeah, we are going to go ahead and go save Rasputin. Eris had come in on the comms and she couldn't reach either of you.' Sakura said and Sasuke nodded.

"Alright, you three be careful, we are going to halt the wakening of Crota's soul." He said and he looked over at Hinata who nodded at him. "Check in at the tower when you're all finished." He said and they all voiced their approval of the plan. Sasuke's Sharingan eye began to spin and he offered Hinata is hand, which she took. They teleported all the way to the tunnels where Eris said the wakening was in progress. "Sasuke, are you tired from using that eye so much?" she asked and he shook his head, but he hunched over and grabbed his knee. She frowned and crouched in front of him, brushing his hair from his face. His eye was bleeding and she gave him a dirty look. "I just asked you if it was hurting you…" she sighed and he huffed. "Don't act all high and mighty now… you made me sob like a baby earlier." She said and he rolled his eyes, which hurt him once more.

She held her hand over his eye and the green chakra that flowed into it made him lean into her hand unconsciously. She offered a small smile when she pulled her hand away. "Better?" she asked and he nodded. "Yeah… thank you…" he said softly and she smiled at him. "Having a little girl made you nicer." She giggled and he sighed and rubbed his neck. "And I think having a son made you mean." He said and Hinata cocked her head at him with a devious gleam in her eye. "No… that was Himawari." She said and Sasuke blinked at her, but then he remembered that both Boruto and Naruto had been demolished by the little sunflower girl in the same day…

"Yeah… I remember that now." He said and she laughed lightly. "I hear them praying…" she said and he nodded and ran to catch up with her but an ogre fell from the ceiling. His eyes went wide as the only thing Hinata found herself able to do was stare up at the ogre as it was falling down on her. He lunged forwards, taking her down the hill with him on the other side of the ogre. "Are you alright?" he asked and she nodded. "Good." He said and pulled his blade, the electric current engulfing him as he took down the ogre with his blade dance. "Sasuke, can you use your bow to wound te wizards?" she asked as she pulled her ice breaker from her inventory. He nodded and shot one wizard with the bow as two rapid shots from the ice breaker were heard. That signaled the death of the first.

Hinata spun and threw a nova bomb at the incoming thrall that had crawled up from the sides of the bridge they were on. It wasn't a tall bridge, no more than three feet off the ground; but still enough for thrall to crawl up from under. They continued to take out another the same way as the first, until the last two both silenced their prayers and screeched in anger. They rushed at Sasuke and Hinata, trying to take each of them out at the same time. Hinata set free Toland, while Sasuke released Andal, who went right for the crystal in the back of the room with the shadow grey ghost hovering around it. Sasuke took out the wizards using his eye to teleport around the room, swapping places with the thrall until he could get a good vantage point to attach a grenade to each of the wizards.

He hit the steps panting and Hinata rushed over to him, but he pointed at the crystal that had begun to levitate and smaller parts revolve around it. "Take out his soul!" Eris demanded over the comms surprising Hinata, but causing her to nod and attack the large crystal. Sasuke called out her name and threw his chokuto to her, although it went to her left instead of right at her. She grabbed it, mouthed a thank you, and began pumping her chakra around the blade. The blade tripled in size and glowed like a pure beam of light. She lunged right for the crystal with Crota's soul in it and sliced right through it, but she didn't stop there. She didn't stop slicing at the crystal until the crystal shattered into tiny bits all over the ground.

The eyes from within the crystal narrowed at her and mumbled something, but she couldn't understand what it had said.

Sasuke's blade shattered in her grasp and she fell backwards into the water, only to be lifted up by the shadow master himself. "Shikamaru." She greeted with a tired smile. "Hey Hinata, Sasuke… long time no see, huh?" he asked and Hinata smiled at him happily. "Sorry about your sword Sasuke." Hinata whispered as Shikamaru helped her over to him. "Eh, its fine… who knows how old that thing would be now anyways. I suppose a new sword would signal a new start, would it not?" he asked and she nodded. "Well, let's get you two out of here before something bigger and meaner than a rock shows up…" Shikamaru sighed as he propped both of the guardians up. "Ugh… what a drag." He sighed and Hinata laughed lightly. "You and Eren sound just alike." She whispered as she fell from Shikamaru's grasp.

Someone else caught her and Shikamaru pulled Sasuke's small hunter knife on them. "Don't, worry… that's just Ashura. She's a friend." Sasuke said and Ashura smirked at the man. "Ah… new meat." She said tauntingly and he rolled his eyes from under his helm as she hefted Hinata onto her back. "Why aren't you wearing a helm?" Sasuke asked and she looked over at the weakened male. "Partial exo has its perks. I still have to use a respirator, but I'm similar to the Fallen in that manner." She said and he nodded. "I see." He said and she ripped open a package and held it over his eye. He screamed out for only a moment, but then his pain dulled away completely. "What the hell was that?" he snarled and she smirked. "A medi pack. Don't get too bad hurt and I won't have to use another one on you big guy." She said and he sneered at her from under his helm.

"Be pissy all you want, but does your eye still hurt?" she asked and he shook his head. "Alrighty then…" she said and he rolled his eyes.

:-:-:-:

The place was dark, dank, and musty and it smelled of bones, but he couldn't complain… this was his home. He knew the eyes of the one who had damned him to this dark now… he was stuck here until his sisters wrought him from the dark. They were close, he knew they were… he could hear their lullabies. Oh how he loved the sound of their death inducing songs…

"Raise me from this pit… and bring me the woman…"

**Author's Note:**

> So! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I'm not exactly sure when I will have the second one up, but it will be soon. I thought it would take longer because I'm working on trying to finish the Veil of Time trilogy, Bad Influence, and A Light In The Dark, as well, but its not taking as long as i thought it would. Anyways! Thank you for reading!


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